


Eden

by DarkdannyFF



Series: PTSD Series [5]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Comrades to the bitter end, F/M, Hopeless War, Horror, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies comradery, Misery, Reapers, Violence, War, outnumbered - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-11 18:36:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12941283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkdannyFF/pseuds/DarkdannyFF
Summary: "Do you think they will remember us? Will what we did here even matter a week from now? Was any of this worth it?"This is the story of two unknown soldiers trapped behind the lines in the darkest hours of the Reaper War, just trying to make a difference in the face of the inevitable.





	1. -21:47:04

**-21:47:04**

…

They were all gone, each and every last one of them.

Shifting through the carnage of the Reaper attack on Eden Prime, Lieutenant Soka Junian found the last member of her platoon – Adran Vactorys. He could not have been more than a teenager himself, freshly drafted into the military. He had been torn to shreds by Cannibal shrapnel wounds.

Silently she murmured a small prayer to him and continued to drag his body to the rest of 423 Platoon of the 194th Light Infantry Division. She ignored her shaking talons as she finally slumped down into the mud next to the bodies and stared down at the vista of Eden Prime engulfed in rain, fire and smoke.

They should have been home. On Palaven fighting the Reapers where they should have been battled. Instead her division had been assigned to aid the Alliance in retaking the colony world from out of the hands of Cerberus. They did, but as Cerberus withdrew, the Reapers landed in their place. Local human militias, Alliance Troops and the 194th battled the Reapers for weeks, but it was far too much in spite of the sacrifice they endured. They could only take a small comfort in the fact that the Reapers had to tie down significant amounts of ships to fight, and even more ground forces. This might have bought Palaven some breathing room by diverting forces away from a major offensive to engage a thorn in the side. That made the early losses worthwhile, it made it bearable.

But that felt like an eon ago now. The defenses of Eden Prime had long since been shattered, the resistance was now but scattered fighters connected to an emergency channel network which they could not use much because the Reaper ground forces were tuned in, and now the Reapers had left to return to their main offensives. They did not harvest the civilian population. They did not have the time, or perhaps need to, but they did leave their occupation force behind to subjugate the civilian population they were leaving to process for a later date.

Whatever the case was, there was no further justification to be here anymore, and for Soka, each passing moment on this miserable, strategically unimportant rock ate away at her conscious… at her very sanity. She wanted to go home, she needed to get her men off this planet and back into the fight proper. But instead here she was, surrounded by the men she failed and wishing to have joined them.

It wasn't too late, she supposed. She still had a couple options left. The soldier instinct in her screamed that she should go down into the valley she overlooked and wage a one turian war against the Reaper ground forces, of which she hoped they had some form of consciousness so they never forgot her last moments. The little voice that represented everything the soldier voice was not had a different opinion: she could just put the barrel of her pistol against her head and end it much quicker.

Either way sounded good right about now. She wasn't going to survive any of this, she had no control in the matter, she would die sooner rather than later, but while she did not control her fate any more, she could control the moment of her destiny. It gave her some measure of comfort as her talon touched against her pistol.

A noise caught her attention and in a display of primal instinct, Soka swung her Phaeston up and fired blindly into the tree line. She fired until her weapon overheated and locked down until the heat clip cooled. There was no return fire and in the absence of a response, she dived behind the nearest rock and raised her rifle again and fired a far more control burst into the tree line for good measure.

" _ **I'M FRIENDLY, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!"**_   a voice roared through her universal translator.

Soka remained at the ready, undeterred by the human language translated into Turii. She was not swayed by the cry to her. At least not without a clear target to examine so she could determine whether or not it truly was friend or foe. Raising herself back up into a combat pose, she gripped the fore grip of her rifle and steadied it.

"Hands up!" she roared at the voice. "Approach slowly and identify yourself!"

After several moments of muttering profanity, the noise she heard revealed itself. Standing there in busted looking Alliance armour, his mud caked battle rifle gripped by the stock and in the air as Soka had commanded him was a System's Alliance Marine. His pale, bloodied and dirt stained face was grim as he inched slowly towards the turian as she had commanded.

Her Phaeston still aimed at him, Soka remained lock eyed with the human. Visually she examined the man for any signs of Reaper indoctrination. Months of fighting the Reapers had taught her to look for the signs. The indoctrinated's cover was generally blown when they walked. They moved wrong… one human she ran into during the opening stages of the Eden Prime counter offensive described them as marionettes being pulled around by their masters. It was not an inaccurate description at all.

This human - at least on the surface - seemed unaffected. There was a slight limp in his step, and glancing down at his leg, she noticed the a large chunk of his leg plating had been blasted off, his thigh burnt and bloodied, dark blood was dried coming from his likely from a concussion round going off nearby. Slowly the man's expression twisted into a grimacing smile. It was like he knew exactly why Soka was prepared to shoot the man dead on the spot. He too was not a stranger to indoctrinated infiltration.

"Lieutenant James Merrick, 58th Marine Division…" the human introduced himself in raspy voice, laboured and in pain "…can I put my hands down now? I'm clean… I'm not one of them…"

Soka remained silent as she continued to glare at the human from behind the iron sights of her rifle. The man remained motionless mostly. He had a slight sway in his body, probably as a result to the mixture of medi-gel and amphetamines keeping him from collapsing right there in front of her. Even if the man was indoctrinated, and it was clear to her so far it wasn't the case, he presented zero security risk at the moment.

Exhaling, the turian nodded curtly as she saw other humans do in similar situations. The human lowered his hands and limped forward. Lowering her rifle, she too stepped forward to meet him so that he did not have to move too much. Carefully she stepped over the bodies of her platoon and tried not to pay attention to the human who had directed his attention to them.

"What are you doing out here?" she demanded, her harsh tone surprising the human enough to get him to redirect his attention upwards to look her dead in the eyes once again.

"Looking for survivors," he admitted his head leaned to one side, his neck cracking. "Major Pytori Halain called my Platoon to divert from New Esperance and link up with your battalion. Strength in numbers was his theory I suppose… We took a vote… we decided to try… Fought for three straight days to break out of the pocket the Reapers ensnared us in. I guess I am all that is left of 3rd Platoon…"

As she noticed the flash of devastation that broke through the stone faced visage the Lieutenant held. Soka softened her own expression. It appeared as though she had found a kindred spirit in this hell. They both lost the people they promised to bring home for a futile platitude. They were officers without men to command.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," Soka broke the silence. "You're looking at all that remains of the 194th Light Infantry Division. We got overwhelmed three days ago as well. General Haorus was killed, and then one by one the chain of command followed him; and it wasn't long before we got overwhelmed… 8:1 by my estimate. I am Lieutenant Soka Junian…"

Soka went silent as she watched the human bow his head and slowly, he fell down to one knee and took a seat in the mud, his hand clutching his knees as he stared straight ahead. It was a display of emotion that she herself could completely understand. After everything he likely had been through, the only turian leftovers was her and her dead comrades.

In his position, she would have been disappointed as well.

"It seems your efforts were wasted. I am sorry…" she apologized, wishing it could sound more emotional than the dead voice that she possessed.

The human did not reply. He pulled a hand away from his knee and wrapped it around the back of his head, pushing off his helmet to reveal a tussle of brown hair that was probably not quite up to regulations. She supposed that in war of extinction, such things weren't exactly a pressing matter. After another moment of silent reflection, the man pulled his hand away from him and looked up at her dead in the eyes. There was no accusation that her people caused the deaths of his, he was just tired and beaten down by the war.

"Me too… We left New Esperance to burn with the Reapers. We could have saved so many lives if we stayed, or at least we could have helped them escape..." Merrick informed Soka softly. "Seventy five thousand plus civilians we left to the Reapers in order to regroup with your division… God _damn_ the Reapers..."

Soka nodded, agreeing utterly with his assessment of the Reaper's divide and conquer of Eden Prime. They had all been forced into heartbreaking tactical situations and in the end it was all for nothing. Everyone was dead and the Reapers were still left relatively unmolested despite their best efforts. This war wasn't a war any more than an insect could retaliate against a boot stamping on them.

"What do we do now?" Soka asked out loud, her options were still on the table. At least now she would have a companion to meet her fate with. It would not be so lonely.

As she noticed the human was struggling to get back up to his feet, Soka reached her talon out to him, which he took and forced himself Standing back up, nearly colliding with the woman in the process.

"The way I see it, we have to escape," Merrick replied soundly as he collected his rifle from off his magnetic strip. "We find a ship… we get our asses back behind the lines. Command needs to know Eden Prime is a lost cause."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, her tactical senses told her that this was a completely logical move, which was surprising considering it had come from a human of all people. The rest of her mind was beyond outraged by the suggestion James Merrick had made. So many dead, so many suffering and here he was wanting to abandon the dead and the living to an enemy that would process them into their newest shock troops regardless of their state? It was madness.

"And what?" Soka breathed, taken aback by his callousness. "We leave these civilians behind to their fate?"

Merrick stared at the turian for a good long while. He nodded his head as though he meant it. He probably did. Like her, he too had a good long time to weigh his options out, but he chose to cut and run like the cowardly human he was. Leave thousands of his people behind to suffer and die all in the name of getting ' _vital_ ' information to command. A pile of krogan shit of an excuse in her books.

"Yes, Lieutenant, They remain behind as a distraction while we leave as soon as possible," Merrick repeated as firmly as before. "The Reapers have destroyed all forms of instant communication back to command. Command will send a scout ship to survey for Reaper ships, and they won't find any. They might divert ships and troops to land on the planet. They'll be ensnared into a trap and more men and women will die if we can't tell them a Reaper ground army is waiting. We have the power to make something like that not happen."

She wanted to hate him for this line of reasoning. It made sense to her, but right now she was not looking for sense. She could not stand before all the men and women she had sent to their death on her command and simply walk away from it, to wash her talons of all the promises she had made to them and start fresh. It was a betrayal of both them and everything she had been raised to believe in.

"They are your own people,  _Lieutenant_!" she sapped at the human finally. "You can't just abandon them! It goes against everything you swore when you took up your oath. Eden Prime has precious few soldiers left… to up and leave when this world needs you…"

The human remained locked eyed on her. His mouth was twisting as though he was battling the urge to express the scowl he most certainly wanted to issue her for what she had attempted to guilt him with. To his credit, he remained unemotional, and stubbornly unmoved by emotional manipulation.

After a moment, the human lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck, he limped forward, his hand reached out and clutched the rock Soka had used as cover earlier. To his credit, he seemed to at least been thinking out what she had said. Perhaps he was less self-interested as she hypothesized.

"Then what should we do?" he inquired finally. "I'm open to suggestions."

Deciding her plan for suicide wasn't going to inspire the human too much; Soka chose the more idealized version of death in its place.

"We fight," was her immediate response, ignoring the stereotype she must have sounded like. "We fight and we save lives, and we die if need be! We can't just leave these people. We have failed them by demanding your unit break out of the New Esperance pocket, perhaps we can go back…. Save as many as we can."

As she fell silent, she stood there looking at Lieutenant Merrick, who had remained silent in spite of her point being made. It would have been comical if it hadn't been for the insane position they were both in. It was made worse by the billowing of smoke on the horizon. The city in question was set ablaze in a vicious firestorm.

"Lieutenant… That is the single most foolish, short sighted goddamn plan I have heard in my life, and I have heard a lot of foolish goddamn things in my life," the human chastised her. "Those people are already dead, you know it's true, so do I. So we have to be realistic."

 _Realistic…_ That was all it took for Soka to finally lose her composure.

" _Realistic_? Look at them!" she suddenly shrieked at him, her talon flailing out to point to the line of her comrades remains. "I promised all those men and women that we would be on the first shuttles back to Palaven to fight for our home world and we get shipped off to some human colony to fight. I promised to see them through this battle and they died on my watch instead! And here I am now; still alive and listening to some human  _coward_  talk about running when the only real option left is to fight!"

The human remained still. He seemed unperturbed by the insult she had issued to him. His blue eyes darted back and forth as he took her steadily growing desperation in carefully. He stepped forward, his hand reaching out to grab the turian by her shoulder.

"Their deaths aren't on you, Soka," he reassured her. "Throwing your life away isn't going to bring them back…"

Soka snapped out and shoved the human back as hard as she could. Considering his state, she was surprised that he managed to remain standing.

"I should have joined them days ago!" she roared back at him, her voice high and panicked "I-I shouldn't be alive, I don't deserve to be alive! You don't deserve to be alive!"

" _We got Husks!"_

The shout of the human and his rifle raised at the ready was all it took to snap her out of her rage and redirect her attention on the incoming enemy. Soka swung her rifle around and aimed at… aimed at… nothing. There was nothing at all to be seen. Just what was wrong with this human-

She never got to ask what the hell that was all about. The thump in the back of her head was all she knew for sure. Her legs gave out and she collapsed, her last conscious sight was that of the human standing over him, his mouth moving as though he was trying to say something, but she just could not make out as her mind faded to black…


	2. -19:57:13

**-19:57:13**

…

Applying his dose of medi-gel directly into his leg wound, Lieutenant James Merrick winced and hissed as the injury burned. Silently he shuffled his body over to where the turian Lieutenant Soka Junian was laying, still in a state of unconsciousness.

He didn't want to hit her. He wished there was some other way to deal with her descent into despair, and under any other circumstances he would have happily talked her through it, but the last thing he needed then and there was a turian screaming in a forest that was likely still crawling with Reaper forces. It was this fact alone that necessitated him giving her a solid blow to the head with his Mattock rifle.

Turning on the UV lamp, he waved it over her and carefully he dabbed the bleeding wound he had inflicted to her fringe. He hoped that she would understand his reasoning once she woke up. He would have used his fist, but he just didn't have the strength to do it. It necessitated the use of a rifle.

Shifting in place, he grabbed his omni-tool, strapping it back on his arm and activating the device. It flickered to life and revealed the small regional topographical map he scavenged off the body of his dead CO Captain Chen Shao. On it was the locations of all the units that were still active. When he took the device off of Shao's body there were still dozens of units reporting in. One by one they went silent and vanished before his eyes. He tried not to think of the implications. Each dot the vanished represented hundreds of his comrades, who were extinguished by the encroaching Reaper ground forces... and now no dots remained. If there were survivors, then they were scattered, unorganized fighting units that would fall not long from now.

Watching them vanish one by one... it was somehow just as bad as seeing it in front of him. It inspired his absolute hatred and awe for the Reapers. They were facing a foe that had done this for eons. Sure… they could spit in the face of the Reapers every so often, but the Reaper didn't get mad. It would wipe its face and continue on its endless march without fear or hesitation. What sort of war could be fought against the likes of them?

He glanced back to the turian woman. He could understand her despair… he lost everyone as well… and he had his weak moments just as she did. But he was alive, and he had found his purpose. He needed to survive. He needed to escape the planet and make sure that Command didn't funnel any more of his brothers and sisters into this meat grinder the Reapers had turned Eden Prime into at minimal force investment to their campaign.

His new purpose following the death of his unit was hampered by the fact that he was all alone. It was what drove him as hard as it did to find the turians. To find them as utterly destroyed as the rest of his company… the entire division most likely, was a devastating turn of events. All that was left was a half suicidal turian whom he needed to convince that their survival was paramount to the war effort. When she was awake, he would do just that.

In order to get off this planet, he needed her. She had to understand they would save more lives off-world than staying. It was a speech which he would soon have to be giving as a low flanging groan caught his attention. Closing his map, James looked over and found the turian Soka stirring, her head rolling to one side as her eyelids fluttered. For a moment, the briefest of moments, the turian seemed to be at peace, like she was in between a dream and reality. It would not be long now before she realized what had happened and the sort of hell the two of them were trapped in.

Sure enough, the turian suddenly jerked upwards, her head banging off the top of the small cave shelter they were in. She tripped and fell back onto her ass and looked at the restraints on her wrists and ankles which James had put on her for good measure. She looked up, her glare blazing with justifiable rage.

"Where am I... and what did you  _do_  to me?!" she growled at him.

"It's a cave I have been using for a safe haven while I scouted for your unit," James said gesturing to their surroundings.

Remembering his scavenging while Soka Junian was out cold, he turned away and rustled through the pile of equipment and supplies he had gathered and dropped several unopened boxes of turian MRE's in front of her. Soka opened her… beak? As if she was curling her lips. She looked up at him like he had done something disrespectful.

"I took what I could off your fallen," he explained to her carefully with a great care to not further upset her. "I know it's disrespectful, but I think they would want you to survive… even if you don't feel the same."

The turian looked like she wanted to say something to him; something that wouldn't be considered very polite. Deciding not to go that route, Soka closed her mouth and raised her wrists up to redirect his attention to the bondage he had placed her in for both of their protection.

"I had to knock you out, you were on the verge of having a panic attack, and that was no time to be dealing with it politely, not with the Reapers out there nearby. I wish I could have, but I couldn't. Something had to be done fast. I didn't want to do it, but I won't apologize for it either," he explained as he shuffled back over to the silently staring turian. "As for the shackles… yeah… I'm sorry for that one, though. It's just that you have goddamn talons and I did do the aforementioned clubbing you in the back of the head with a rifle, but I'm not inclined in taking a chance of you waking up and attacking me on the spot… so here, let me…"

Activating his omni-tool, he unlocked the shackle's security encryption. Now free, James sat back and waited to see if the turian decided to beat the living hell out of him for what he did to her. He supposed he sort of deserved it. He wasn't going to suggest this was entirely her fault. Getting smacked in the head like he did sort of warranted an ass kicking he supposed.

But, to her credit all that the turian did was rub her wrists and crawl away from him until she was resting her back against the opposite cave wall. She hung her head and held her attention solely on her lap. It was almost as though she was ashamed. Of what, he could only hypothesize, but he had a pretty solid idea. He supposed it was the fact that she was still drawing breath. She was still alive.

It was a strange sort of shame for him to see. His father served in the First Contact War, he held onto his hatred for turians until the day he died; ironically at the hands of Cerberus during their raid on the Citadel. His father wasn't a bad man. Well, maybe he was, but still he was a man with a sprained soul. He saw the worst the Hierarchy had to offer and could never forgive them. As such he tried to pass on the hate, prejudice and stereotypes he learned from First Contact to his children. Notably that turians were unthinking, unfeeling creatures of duty to their hierarchy.

While James never really believed that, his suspicions were confirmed by the utterly devastated turian sitting there in front of him in a stupor. Perhaps some of the stereotypes had merit, but unthinking? Unfeeling? That was definitely not what he was seeing in her.

"Do you think me weak? A poor example of my race?" the turian spoke in a low harmonic tone. Embarrassed by the sounds of it, perhaps she was a little bit worried that the human was judging her.

James shook his head, painfully forming a reassuring half smile.

"I think you're only human… metaphorically I mean," he said, and then amended as she tilted her head at him. "You lost your platoon and there I was trying to get you to see logic before the bodies of your men were even cold. You freaked out... it's only natural to have a reaction like that."

The turian did not respond to him, so James clamped his mouth close. He decided to grant her a few moments to see if she would make the first move on the subject. It was, after all, her loss. It needed to be dealt with. The last thing he needed was a partner in this venture that was a reckless suicide case. He didn't know if the tried and tested human method of working through grief with words held up to the turian standard, but it was worth a try.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he finally broke their silence. "We have a common experience in this sort of los-"

The turian named Soka narrowed her eyes at him.

" _I don't want to talk about it, Lieutenant_ ," she snapped back at him, cutting him off before he could try to help bring some sort of closure that didn't involve her killing herself. "I ... I want to talk about what it is you hope to achieve, and why you are so quick to abandon this world and its inhabitants."

James looked over the turian for a moment. Knowing better than to argue and feeling that it was for the best that the turian at least have something else to focus on in the meantime, James opened his omni-tool and activated the command and control map.

Realizing what he possessed, Soka pushed herself off the opposite wall and took a seat next to him.

"As you can see, the Reaper ships aren't here. They're gone. They've left. The ground forces left behind are just drones and husks. They don't have the capacity to harvest. They are occupying the planet until the Reapers can direct their attention back to it," he explained his logic slowly and steadily. "Eden Prime has a relatively low population. That means it will be a secondary, probably even tertiary objective world for them to harvest. For now the colonists are safe, but if we fight… if we resist openly, it will only bring about more needless deaths on the colonists."

Exhaling and rubbing his forehead as he tried not to think about the frightfully horrible thing he was advocating, he directed his full attention to the lieutenant. Soka was already staring at him. She was just as horrified at what he was saying as he was, but there seemed to be some sort of understanding now.

"The fight we need to join is the one where the Reaper fleet is," he pressed on. "The longer we keep the Reaper fleet busy, the longer we keep the civilians alive here. If we cause too much trouble here... if we were to raise an organized underground resistance and fight on, who's to say the Reapers won't send a dozen back to finish this colony off for good? Having a Reaper occupation force controlling their movements is an all-round shitty situation, but it is a lesser of the two evils right now."

He fell silent once again, this time his piece was said. Now it was just up to Soka to absorb what he said. Give her time to come to terms with the terrible logic he was advocating. He hated doing this… speaking this sort of evil out loud… but someone had to be the one to do it.

"So…" the turian spoke up, her tone as carefully controlled as his was moments prior. "We leave… we tell the Alliance not to divert forces here… we keep the Reaper attention on the colony at a minimum…and that will prolong lives here."

She summed up his logic, but she had not voiced an opinion. For now the fact that she was no longer calling him out as a coward was a good sign in itself. Perhaps she was starting to come around to what he was saying. She might not have liked what he had to say, but it didn't mean she was about to stick her head in the sand and pretend that what he was saying didn't make any sense.

As he flipped through the security footage on the omni-tool, he felt a little elated by this. It was a small victory he was happy to take.

"There is a civilian freighter in dry dock five kilometres outside of New Esperance…" he said, bringing up the archived footage of a freighter. "We had engineers preparing to turn it into a flying drone Kamikaze… well… basically we turned the ship into a suicide bomb… fire ship… whatever, but the Reapers left and the ground forces went on a general offensive and we abandoned it. Last I heard it was still intact… but that was 36 hours ago, and so we need to go quickly. We'll have to strip the explosives out… otherwise… well, a stray shot and it's short trip for us, hey?"

His grim chuckle did not get a shared laugh from the turian, but she did sort of look at him funny. Like she wanted to, but she had far too much dignity to partake in it. Her beak opened and closed several times as though she had a question on the tip of her tongue that she wanted to ask but dreaded the answer. Thankfully, she seemed to be loosening up.

"What if we run into civilians while going about deactivating the explosives on the ship?" she inquired, keeping her attention focused on the freighter.

That was a question James himself had been battling since he came to the decision to get off Eden Prime. It was probably a harder decision to come to more than leaving millions behind to endure slavery at the brutal hands of the Reapers.

"Nothing," was his quietly spoken answer to Soka Junian's question. "We don't do anything for them. We don't bring them, we don't fight for them. We don't risk a goddamn thing for them."

He looked her way ad found the Lieutenant looking at him with and expression of dumbfounded incomprehension at what he proposed. If he were in her position it would have been just as likely he'd feel the same way. Even a day after coming to terms with this, he could not help but feel nauseous at this… but as much of a bastard as it made him seem, it was the right decision…

… It had to be…

"But…  _James_ …" she said, surprising him with using his first name out loud, her tone almost pleading. "We can fill that freighter up. It looks like it can comfortably hold two hundred people. Quarian ships of that size can carry double that if properly stripped of all luxury-"

"We're  _not_  quarians, we don't have luxury of time to strip the ship, and we certainly are  _not_  broadcasting what we are doing to civilians," he reminded her before she could go off on a tangent.

She looked ready to protest. It was only a natural reaction from someone with a conscious. But now the cards were on the table. He couldn't soft sell this anymore. He reached out and grabbed what he supposed was her wrist.

"I don't think you understand the position you and I are in," he breathed to her without any accusation of stupidity in his tone. "There is a very real possibility that we are the highest ranking officers  _left_  in the Alliance and Hierarchy task forces sent to Eden Prime. There may be others, I don't know for certain. What I do know is that we are here, and our lives are now officially more valuable than anyone else's. I don't like saying that. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But that's just how it is now. Our survival is priority. They aren't. They… the colonists... they don't have that luxury. If we run into civilians, and we will… and they figure out what we are doing? How long until the secret gets out. A few dozen people knowing can turn into thousands knowing quicker then we can handle. The next thing you know we're going to be re-enacting  _Sophie's Choice_  and that's something I don't want to do!"

Clearly from the confusion on Soka's face, she wasn't a connoisseur in classic human film. Running his hand through his hair shook his head, as if striking his last comment from the record.

"…And that's not even factoring in the Reapers finding out," he pressed onward. "No… the fewer the better and two people knowing what we're doing is as much a risk as we're going to take on this."

Soka remained silent. She was well beyond the point of horrification now, but she knew better then to question what he was saying. His mind was made up, and it appeared as though the turian too had come around to see that this was really the only way to go about this.

"What happens if civilians find out on their own?" she decided to ask."Are we going to turn them away on the spot?"

James bit his lip and held his eyes on hers. He wished he could be as open as she was. But civilians presented so many unknown variables. What if some were indoctrinated? What if they decide to tell others? What if they went out in search of family and came back leading Reaper forces to them. No… they couldn't be allowed to be a part of this… they had to be dealt with… perhaps even by them.

Would killing the civilians by their hands be a kindness? That was an ethical debate he was nowhere near ready (or drunk) enough to have.

"The Alliance has the freighter protected with automated defenses," he informed her as he pressed his back into the cave wall. "When we arrive, our first task is to turn them on and let them sort out any potential civilian interest. Blood will be on our hands when we escape… what is a few dozen more gallons, anyway?"

Soka continued to stare at him. It was not a hard one, or even accusatory as he deserved… it seemed as though she pitied him… or it was empathy. He had trouble with turian expressions. Whatever the case was, it was softer than before. Like she was coming to understand his position.

"I want to be as angry at you, Merrick," she admitted to him softly. "…but I am forced to admit that I can not find a fault in what you're saying… Resistance will only cause more suffering for civilians. It still feels wrong… but… but I think you're right… sacrificing lives to save more lives…"

Scratching at the dried blood on his ear, James huffed as he nodded.

"It's undeniably  _shit_  plan, I know, but it's all I have…" he agreed with a great deal of self-directed malice in every word he spoke. "…and… and if it makes you feel better, if it goes to shit, we'll have a second option on the table…"

Soka squinted and tilted her head in confusion.

" _Second option_?" she inquired, her mandibles pushing out slightly.

James emitted a small humourless laugh.

"Well…  _yours_ , of course," he reminded her. "We get surrounded and go down shooting… but we'll do it together… as partners… Is it a deal?"

That elated Soka greatly.

"Deal," she agreed, outstretching her talon hand out to him. He took it and they shook on their virtual suicide pact.

He watched as Soka seemed to smile. She seemed satisfied that her suggestion wasn't entirely off the table. If he was being honest it seemed like of the two, it would be hers that would be the more likely outcome. Still, he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of an easy death. They would succeed in their objective and they would live, even if it meant dragging her kicking, clawing and screaming off this world.

…well,  _maaaybe_  not clawing. If she started swing her talons around at him, then whatever, he could stay… perhaps… It all depended on if he could pull the old Boy Who Cried Husk trick on her again. If turians were half as gullible as he had been led to believe then perhaps that was a possibility.

"We'll head out in an hour…" Soka's words brought him back to reality. She pushed herself out of her seat next to him and sat down on the ground in front of him and added. "Now, take off that leg plating… I'll properly field dress that wound and I'll see if I can solder on turian plating in place. Won't be good replacement, but it's better then what you have now… can't be carrying you around, right  _partner_?"

Sighing, James nodded and outstretched his leg and allowed the turian woman to pry off the plating and the half-assed bandaging he did to his charred leg. Silently he hoped turian doctoring was not as painful as he hoped it would not be.

But life isn't fair, now is it?


	3. -14:53:10

**-14:53:10**

**…**

Checking the corner, Soka Junian tapped James Merrick on the shoulder, and together the two of them came out of the cover of the pile of rubble and sprinted across the street. Their rifle's aimed at the three Marauders and together they brought the Reaper abominations down before either of them realized what had hit them. Their rifle silencers and the heavy rain covered the gunfire significantly as to not alert any nearby forces.

They had been on the move for the past few hours now. With her much steadier hands, Soka had properly got the human up to a condition that somewhat matched her own. Obviously with the amount of shrapnel damage he had endured, he would likely remain behind her in terms of speed, but at least his steel resolve remained and that fueled her to push forward, to force the guilt of failing her unit to the back of her thoughts as a new mission became her new obsession.

As her visor's auto-wiper cleaned away the soot and rain mixture out of her line of sight, she glanced over to the human, who was looking through the optical of his Mattock battle rifle. When she started this mission, she did not exactly know what to think of the alien's ability. She chalked his survival up to luck and the sacrifice of his men. But he had thus far proven himself to her that he had a real talent for soldiering.

This left Soka feeling guilty for having had such thoughts of his potential incompetence in the first place. Even in the middle of a fight for their very survival, the old prejudices somehow remained as strong as ever. To his credit, it seemed as though Merrick had forgotten whatever old grudges he might have held for turians – if he held any in the first place – and worked to facilitate a cohesive union between the two aliens. It was… admirable… and enviable.

As Soka and James reached their next cover, a store of some sort which had been hit by artillery, Soka kicked in the door and James was the first one inside, his rifle sweeping for potential hostiles. Finding none, he waved his hand to indicate it was clear and together they moved through the ruins, over the bodies of civilians and dead Reaper abominations alike until they got through to the employee's only area and stepped out through the fire exit and into the alleyway it led to. James covering one end of the street, Soka the other. Clear of any sign of threats, the two of them lowered their rifles and met in the middle of their gap.

Soka was happy for her helmet masking her personal elation away from her new partner. It felt shameful to feel as though she was once again achieving something worthwhile in the shadow of her failure as a platoon leader. It was good to feel useful again.

" _We're doing well so far…"_ Soka heard Merrick say over their two way private communication channel.  _"Let's keep pushing through what buildings we can find… stay out of the street whenever possible."_

The turian nodded to the human and in near perfect unison they raised their rifles and got moving once again, with Soka taking the lead and James limping several paces behind her, his rifle moving left to right sweeping their flanks. As they reached the end of the alleyway, Soka formed her talon into a fist for the human to observe. He stopped behind her and together they looked at the two husks lingering out in the open, their backs turned to the pair of them.

Soka launched herself out into the street and struck the nearest one in the back of its skull with her Phaeston stock. The second turned around and before it could scream or react, Soka fell to one knee, pulled her combat knife out and plunged it hard through the bottom of the former human's jaw. The creature slumped and Soka pulled the knife out and stabbed the one she had clubbed for good measure.

" _Remind me never to hit you again,"_  she heard James say as he approached her sweeping the street for any sort of counter movements.

Soka chuckled and stood up, returning the blade back to her knife holster. She raised her weapon and with hat small catharsis out of the way, the two of them bolted into the ruins of the apartment building opposite of them.

They couldn't have been more than a kilometre away from the objective now. This small community they were in seemed to have sprung up around the small spaceport out of necessity rather than direct colonial plans. IT was a first sign of a growing colony…. on the spot city planning as opposed to some manager plotting a million light years away 20 years prior. This world was coming into its own when the Reapers arrived.

Damn this war and damn these monstrosities…

Quietly the two of them pushed through the hallways. No survivors, but a lot of corpses. Men, women… children… all fair game to the Reaper forces. As she stepped over the body of a broken young girl, Soka supposed it was better they died then were processed into the creatures that tore them to shreds.

She paused and allowed James to step by her. He turned the corner and found a Husk standing there, it rounded back and as it shrieked, James shot the creature dead and called out  _"Clear"_  over their feed. Backing into the room, Soka slammed the door close behind them and lowered her rifle. Her talon pulling her helmet off as James did the same as she. They needed a moment to collect recollect their nerves, gather their bearings and plot out the next part of their course.

"We're making good time, all things considered," James spoke as he rummaged through his bag and pulled two water bottles out, throwing one to Soka. "The main Reaper force in this sector must be sweeping through the city for organized resistance… I think that they're stretched out far thinner than I thought."

Soka nodded as she took a drink. That was good news in the short term, but the Reapers had near telepathic communication with one another. If one so much as got away and reported them, it would not be long before they overran the pair of them. She remained silent as she watched James stood back up and left the room to investigate. Taking a moment for herself, Soka took another gulp and stood up and drew her sidearm. Quietly she followed after James. She did not want to be left alone.

She found James standing in a doorway of what appeared to have been the master bedroom of this apartment. His rifle was at rest, but he remained locked eye on something. Soka picked up her pace and looking up to James for a moment, she looked at what he was staring at.

There lying dead on the master bed was a family of humans. The mother and the father were on opposite ends with three young children in the middle, their arms protectively wrapped around their young. They looked as though they all went to the eternal sleep together. On the night stand was an open bottle of wine and a bottle of pills.

It was… peaceful...

"It looks like suicide…" she said the obvious in hopes to break James out of his silence. "They took control of their fate in the face of domination. It's not fair for the children… but it's…  _admirable_."

James remained locked in place over the bodies, Soka stepped forward to the family and carefully, she leaned forward and pulled the blanket they laid under over their heads and stepped back to join James. She reached her talon out and wrapped it around his forearm, the slight pinch breaking his stare on the dead and redirecting it back down on her.

"We  _have_  to keep moving," she reminded him, her voice only stern to remind him that they had an assignment to complete.

James remained in place for a moment longer before he nodded and together they left the bedroom to gather their equipment left in the living room and prepare to move out. His mood hadn't improved. She could not blame them. If this had been a turian wor-

No… this bothered her immensely. Human or turian, this was awful in an incomprehensible way regardless of what race had been involved. A family killed themselves in the face of an unknown terror. Justified and admirable as it might have been to her, it never should have happened in the first place.

This was what the Reapers were in reality. They were well beyond some external military threat. They were the great, looming unknown. They were extinction in a physical form. Not everyone could be brave about it, or face them down without fear in their hearts. In the grand scheme of thing, most would never be able to do now what Soka and James were doing: Surviving... fighting to live another day. Seeing this family gave her another reason to survive. So that one day she would be able to see an end of the war.

As she fitted her helmet back over head, she turned back to James who remained helmetless. Exhaling, she stepped forward placed her hand back on his arm. She did not speak. She would even have known what to say. Words weren't her strongest strength. So instead she remained there. Perhaps her presence alone would force the man back out of this flash of personal despair.

It seemed to work. A few more seconds and James snapped himself back to reality with a shake of his head. A thin smile slashed onto his face and James pulled his helmet back over his head. Silently the two of them left the apartment and moved back out into the bombed out hallway, pushing through more corpses and rubble until they reached a gaping hole in the wall, leading back out into the street. As they clambered down the pile of rubble, they took incoming fire, forcing the two of them to dive and roll down the pile.

Soka was the first to collect herself. She reached out and grabbed James by his shoulder and together they ran through the Cannibal tracer rounds, their shields flaring up several times but neither of them had rounds connect. They dove behind the cover of a smouldering shuttle and returned fire on the small squad.

As the Cannibals fell and died, James and Soka relocated as quickly as they could, the pair of them bolted out of the area hoping to avoid detection from possible Reapers responding to the firefight. Finding a tractor trailer with a half opened door, James and Soka ducked inside to hide away from the Reapers. Sure enough, it wasn't long before a screaming Banshee lurked into the area, likely leading a reaction unit.

With that, they would wait it out, see if some of the heat died down. Closing the door behind them, leaving them in pitch black, James turned on his UV light and quietly the two of them navigated into the furthest point of the trailer and took a seat next to each other.

" _From here on out, we have to avoid further combat,"_  Soka said to James over their two way.  _"We don't want to attract any more attention, right?"_

Soka's words earned a pat on her helmet from the human, slightly annoying her, but she did not voice it. She instead remained silent and together the pair of them listened to the sounds of the various Reaper species scream at one another as they attempted to locate the source of the resistance to no avail.

Together in a strained silence the pair of them waited in place, both of them holding their weapons down the trailer towards the door. It felt like minutes before the sounds of the screaming faded. The moment it did, James got up and flashed his UV light at the floor of the trailer, locating a steel grate. Together, the pair of them pried it out and without waiting, James climbed through it first, hitting the pavement and in a crawl he scampered out of sight. Soka followed suit and the pair of them silently shadowed the rapidly departing Reaper forces.

It quickly became apparent why the Reapers were leaving. They had a new more obvious target to deal with and as the pair of them took cover behind an overturned Alliance Kodiak shuttle, it became obvious what had drawn the attention of the response force away from the two lieutenants.

There, across the street was a warehouse, emitting from it was the sound of screams and gunfire being directed at the encroaching Reaper patrol. Several husks were hit by the new fire, but the Reapers were naturally undeterred. They stepped over the dead and fired back into the resistance being presented to them.

 _"What do you make of it?"_  James asked finally, breaking their silence.

Soka knew exactly what to make of what was unfolding. It was the makings of a slaughter. Whoever had been shooting had drawn the attention and ire of the occupation troops. Now the Reapers in the region would not rest until the resistance was stamped out. These people were all dead unless someone had the power and the will to intervene on their behalf.

In other words… nobody was going to save them. There would be no heroic rescue of them, no Commander Shepard type storming up the Reapers line to smash the enemy and save the innocence. They were on their own and Soka knew that their deaths was exactly the distraction the pair of them needed right now.

" _Leave them…"_  Soka finally spoke, her voice as solid as she could make it and hating herself and every single syllable she was using.  _"They'll make a decent distraction, we can pass by unnoticed. We're only a kilometre away from the target site now…"_

But James Merrick did not respond to her reminder. He remained locked in place, his helmeted head focused on the Reapers firing on the civilians. The rifle in his and was gripped tightly, as though he was prepared to use it.

Behind her visor, the turian squinted at the human in confusion. He had been the proponent on self-preservation since they first met. Why now did he seem to balk? Was his resolve being tested the moment he got to see what his opinion manifest into a reality?

" _You said our escape from this planet is more important than the civilians we might run into,"_  she reiterated once again, her voice growing even more concerned as she watched James prepare a concussion round.

She heard James exhale and he turned to face her.

" _Soka_ ," he said ruefully. " _I'm about to do something fucking stupid and contradictory to everything I said earlier… so please go easy on me afterwards…_ "

With that, James stood up from his position and fired his concussion round at the Banshee, knocking her flat on her ass.

As James let loose another volley of fire, Soka too stood up out of her cover and as she ignored the flutter in the pit of her gut, she fired a second concussion round at the Banshee attempting to stand back up, knocking the corrupted asari back into the mud. Soka tossed a hand grenade into the Banshee and watched with satisfaction as the creature exploded in a mess of fire and gore.

With the Banshee down, Soka directed her own fire on the nearest Marauder and together the human and the turian laid as much fire as they could on the Reapers, ignoring their barriers flaring up from the returning fire. As one Husk approached her, she stamped it hard in the stomach with her boot and shot three rounds through it. As the fire intensified from the Reapers, the pair of them got behind a cargo truck and swapped out their overheated rifles for their pistols and continued pressing their attack on the creatures.

Before either of them knew it, more gunfire stemming from the civilians they were now saving joined their chorus. Soka peered over the cover and found three armed men had joined the close quarter's fray. One was armed with Alliance marine armour and a rifle. The other two had what appeared to have been a civilian design. One was armed with a pistol, the other with a shotgun.

Swapping back to their rifles, James and Soka leaped out of their cover and fired on the last of the Reaper patrol. Together with the newcomers, they overwhelmed the Reaper unit and with that the fighting ended as quickly as it began. Soka and James looked up from the dead and dying Reapers and directed both their attention and rifles to the newcomers, who had taken shelter behind the concrete walls guarding the factory.

"Come out now, let's see your hands!" James roared at other combatants. He might have taken a chance to help these people but he wasn't going to give them the benefit of the doubt so quickly.

" _Shit_ …" one of them swore. "Alright, we're coming out. Don't shoot!"

After a moment, the trio of combatants threw out their weapons in the direction of the pair of them, and with their hands over their heads; they stepped out into plain view and in front of the pair of rifles aimed at them. Soka and James glanced at one another for a moment and together they lowered their rifles. Both of them held a reasonable doubt that these three were indoctrinated by the Reapers.

The leader of the three of them - the one dressed as an Alliance marine - broke into a wide smile as he stepped forward and realized he was looking at one of his comrades.

"Lieutenant, Private Eduardo Nascimento of the 149th Marine Division…  _Damn_  glad to find another Marine, sir!" the Private said gratefully as he lowered his hands and snapped to a state of attention. "These two are Constable's Farah Abboud and Gerry Lee of the New Esperance Police Department."

Nodding to the private and the civilian police whom were under the Private's command apparently, James stepped forward and placed his battle rifle back on his mag strip. As James looked her way and took off his helmet, Soka smirked under her helmet… so there was a trace of empathy left in the human after all… she would have to tease him about it at a later time…

"James Merrick and this is Lieutenant Soka Junian," he introduced the both of them tersely. "What is all of this?"

Private Nascimento glanced back in the direction of the warehouse he had been guarding. The screaming had died down. A few of the civilians he had been leading even came out to see what had happened. Without being asked to, both of the police officers stepped forward, collected their weapons and went back to settle the civilians back down, leaving the military personnel alone to talk freely.

"I was heading to the Alliance landing zone as per instruction when I started getting trickling of civilians following me. Thinking that I could help them…. I couldn't… I couldn't just  _leave_  them, sir…" Nascimento said as he collected his avenger rifle. He trailed off helplessly; the tone that used screamed the young enlisted man was overwhelmed by the sudden burden of responsibility.

In a display of sympathy, the Lieutenant nodded. It was hard to believe only minutes ago, the man was prepared to leave the Private and his colonists to die. It was a change that brought the turian woman some small comfort. That perhaps they would be able to save some civilian lives and escape the Reaper controlled world as well.

"The Alliance landing zone was overwhelmed days ago, Private…" the Lieutenant informed the enlisted man. "We have a plan of sorts… play by our rules and everyone gets out safe, okay?"

Private Nascimento nodded. He naturally appeared confused by what it was Lieutenant Merrick was saying, but it would not be long before he understood. He did not seem particularly elated that a plan was on the table.

"That's… great and all…" the private mused without any real enthusiasm. "But with all due respect, Sir… Lieutenant… I don't know where in the  _hell_  you both have been, but there is a bigger problem that sort of presented itself a few hours ago."

Neither Soka nor James had a chance ask just what the private had meant by bigger problems. They did not have to. As if on cue, the sound of a familiar menace roared out from the distance, sending a shiver of absolute terror through every nerve which Soka possessed. It was the call of extermination itself presenting itself to the planet.

A Reaper Dreadnought was on Eden Prime. It was must have been near New Esperance by the sounds of it.

" _Yeah…_ " the numbed turian heard Private Nascimento say faintly. " _That problem…_ "

**…**


	4. -12:07:12

**-12:07:12**

**...**

Pushing himself up the final stairs of the observation tower built to overlook the spaceport, James Merrick raised his rifle up and hunched he got down and belly crawled until he reached Soka Junian, she herself was on her stomach and covered in an improvised camouflage netting.

As he reached her, she looked his way and pulled the netting off her side, wrapping it him in it as well. James rolled slightly closer to her and dropped the end back down. Together, the two of them stared out into the pounding rain and smoke as they gazed at the Reaper Dreadnought remaining perfectly still. Soka remained silent as she wiped the smudging red face paint off her face and raised her rangefinder back in the direction of the behemoth.

Silently James wondered how he had missed it. They were in a quite the hurry to reach the spaceport that they somehow did not notice the several kilometers tall vessel fifteen odd clicks outside of the city. He supposed it no longer mattered anymore. What he really had to be thinking about now was just how much this would affect the plan. He had seen the terribly pinpoint accuracy of the Reapers hitting ships. Sometimes he wondered if he escaped Earth out of Reaper mercy… an investment on the Reaper's part to spread fear and terror into the hearts of the organics to weaken resolve when the Reaper attention turned their way.

Whatever had been the case, he doubted very much that this Reaper would see the benefit of mercy. Not when the dark night sky were lit red as it fired on just about everything it saw in close striking distance. What was it targeting its anti-ship weaponry at? Infantry? Survivors?

"It's still not moving towards us?" James asked his companion, taking the rangefinder from her talons and taking a good look for himself.

Next to him, Soka looked his way. Pulling the rangefinder from his eyes, he looked over to the turian in close proximity, just lying there next to him and looking at him in a funny way. It was like he had said something ridiculous or something to elicit the expression from her. Perhaps she did not like him taking her equipment without asking permission

Whatever it had been going on with the woman, he decided to be safe than sorry and handed the device back to her. Soka made a strange or of throat based noised like she was clearing something out of it and turned back to face the Reaper's direction.

"It seems to be moving in a patrol pattern…" Soka spoke finally, her voice tense as she looked through the scope again. "But I noticed something in the movement. It's… how should I put it… I think the Reaper is wounded, Merrick -seriously wounded. Navy must have put it through a serious barrage, so it came here… somewhere quiet to do repairs."

The Reaper had been critically damaged? Perhaps they still had a shot at escape after all.

"Go Navy," James muttered out loud.

"Go Navy," Soka repeated as she handed him her rangefinder. "It isn't using any main armaments. Every target it hit so far, it needs to get within 1000 metres or so. It seems to be sweeping a safe zone for itself…"

Soka's hypothesis would certainly explain why it was attacking anything and anyone it perceived as a threat of any capacity. Was it possible that a wounded Reaper had the capability to feel fear for its own life. James certainly hoped that was the case. Whatever the case, they had to move before the Reaper decided to expand its safe zone their way.

"Do you think we have a shot at just getting on the freighter and leaving?" he asked her.

"Spirits no," she whispered back, sounding like she had thought his question was a stupid one to ask. "I think it's confused, but it has enough sense to spot a sudden launch, and perhaps it might think we'll report its state back to the fleet… It'll send out its air support and that'll be it."

James nodded and went silent. Soka was glancing his way once again, but she said nothing more to him. The two of them returned back to their silent observation of the Reaper. As she looked away, it was his turn to look at her. Soka had seemed to gain back some sense of her turian stability… if that was ever a thing.

Whatever the case, she seemed to be much more in control of herself then when they first met; and since James failure to stick to his own decision became clear, she seemed almost elated in his change of heart, as though he had decided on the spot to find some sort of compassion and do the right thing for the first time in his life.

Little had she known it was all smoke and mirrors…

"Four times…" he spoke suddenly.

His words had naturally caught her attention. Soka looked his way, but James could not look her in the eyes. He held his attention out on the darkened horizon.

"I've been passed over for promotion to Lieutenant Commander four times," he pressed on, his tone somewhat ashamed in his admittance to his turian counterpart. "My old CO feels… felt… that I was too compassionate for higher responsibility… that I  _'used my heart as a brain'_  was his exact phrasing. When we first met… I tried to be harder than I was for first impressions sake… but I'm really not."

Soka remained silent next to him. Through the small UV lamp between them and his peripheral vision, he could see her mandibles flicker slightly. She seemed to have been reassessing him. Whether that was a good or bad thing, he did not know and Soka's long silence did nothing to helm gauge the reaction properly.

"I still believe we are too valuable to die, and we shouldn't broadcast what we're doing…" he hastily amended, hoping to regain some of his image. "But if we can save people, I'm not disinclined towards it. So… Soka… I'm sorry that I was dicking around with your moral fibre needlessly."

The turian was still silently staring at him. After a good moment, she seemed to have shaken her head and looked away, her rangefinder once again was back in use, but it seemed as though it was just for show.

"I'm... glad that you lacked the conviction to your original stance," she mumbled in a strange tone. It was like she was straining to admit something like that to him. If it had been anyone else, it would have come across to James that it was a display of shyness.

Deciding to stop using the rangefinder as an excuse, she dropped it between the two of them and looked at him proper once again. She lifted herself up slightly as she rested herself on her elbows. Her mandibles flared back open as she started to speak, at least make the attempt to. It took several attempts before…

"We can't save everyone… you showed me that, and you were right in many of your points…" she found her voice. "…but if we can save these civilians … perhaps it is something we both can live with."

Soka went silent, and the pair of them was left staring at each other perhaps a little more intensely than they should have been. James exhaled slowly and nodded as he shuffled a little closer to her.

"…Start from polar opposites and meet in the middle?" he elaborated upon her point.

The turian woman did not speak a word, all she did was blink once and nod, her… beak (?) opened slightly to reveal a small row of sharp teeth. Neither of them said a word. They both just lingered in the strained silence. Noticing nothing, not even the distant Reaper roar and the sky that emulated the pair of them in neon red.

"-Lieutenant's, can we come up here?"

And just like that it was over. Soka snapped her head back to the direction of the sound of Private Nascimento and so too did James. Sure enough the young soldier was peering around the corner awaiting an acknowledgment. Looking in the direction of the Reaper for a moment, James turned back and nodded.

Private Nascimento stood up and clambered over to where Junian and he were laying, and took a seat behind the steel cover. Trailing him were the two law enforcement officers Abboud and Lee. They sat down next to him, both of them looking at the new officers in charge with relative suspicion. Junian, it seemed, got the brunt of it.

"What do you need, private?" he asked, redirecting their attention solely to him.

Shifting his rifle into his lap, the Private looked at him as though he had all the answers. Nascimento was in for a disappointment.

"Sir, you mentioned you had a plan?" he inquired as he peered around the cover as though he could see the Reaper through the dark. "My plan involved getting the civvies outside of the city… perhaps to one of the smaller settlements, see if we could Rendezvous with more law enforcement and military and organize something. But if you have something on your mind, I want to help you with it."

Merrick chuckled lowly. The plan… yes, for now it seemed to be shot to hell for the time being.

"Well, we had a plan until the Reaper made its appearance. We don't have a plan anymore," James admitted to the Private and the civilians. Glancing at Soka, he added. "But option two is still on the table, right Junian? More the merrier, I always say."

Soka was once again looking through the rangefinder. Unlike the last time, she seemed to be serious about it.

"I have an idea," she informed James, her attention seemingly too valuable to be spared to the others. "I don't think you're going to like it, because I don't like it."

Next to her, James arched his eyebrow and squinted at her.

"Does it involve option two?" he asked her, attempting a little levity between the two of them in face of the challenge in front of them. "Because I'm fairly certain I didn't like it from the start."

He could have sworn he could the woman emitted a low growl out of annoyance.

"Option two is  _not_  on the table just yet," she all but snapped back at him. She lowered the rangefinder and glared at him as she added. "Are you going to hear me out, or do I just go ahead and force option two to happen right here, right now?"

James raised his hands in a mock surrender and widened his smirk into a grin. It seemed as though he had really touched a nerve.

"Well, since you put it that way... If you have a plan that doesn't involve option two, then I just have to hear it. It has to be good…" he retorted right back, earning an expression of admonishment from the woman.

"Are you two okay?"

The Private ended the banter between turian and human, man and woman. Soka blinked and coughed awkwardly. She rolled on her side and lifted herself up until she was in a sitting position and pulled the netting off of her, leaving James the only one covered.

"Right... Okay…the freighter, James - I mean Lieutenant…" she spoke up, gesturing to the spaceport a block or two away from them. "What sort of explosive device are we talking about?"

Pulling the netting off of himself as well, James sat up just as she ha and looked in the direction of the spaceport she was gesturing to.

"A Cerberus built colony killer bomb… 25 megatons," James informed her, earning several profanities from the law enforcement officers, who as residents of said colony that Cerberus had marked the bomb for use against, were justifiably upset. "If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, then option two is back on the table, isn't it?"

Soka reached out and shoved James.

" _For the last time, no James!_ " she hissed at him, so flustered that she already forgot the formality she had tried to return the two of them back to. "We take the bomb; we put it into the New Esperance fusion reactor, create a bigger bomb, and lure that disoriented Reaper into ground zero."

Soka had been right… James really didn't like this plan. He might have even disliked it more than he had disliked option two. It was one thing to commit suicide by Reaper… it was quite another thing to lure the Reaper into the middle of a still occupied city and detonate an improvised fusion bomb. The Reaper was wounded and potentially disoriented, but it wouldn't be stupid. It would know if there was an evacuation order on their part.

That meant they would have to denote the bomb without telling any of the residents of New Esperance. That was seventy five thousand people before the war. Even now that was still tens of thousands of people who would be caught in the blast wave; and the blood would be on Soka and James' hands…

"You… you're talking about wiping this city out!" he heard Officer Abboud admonish the turian.

Looking her way once again, James found Soka staring at the civilians intently. It was not dissimilar to how he was attempting to get her to understand the value their lives were over everyone else. She was calm and collected, but it was all just a mask in all likelihood. From what he knew of her, she was probably inwardly shaken that she was taking this position. With all her heart she wanted to save people. To find her advocating this sort of sacrifice…

"I want you to think about this carefully, because this is a big picture action…" Soka spoke directly to Private Nascimento and the civilians. "How old is that thing? How many extinction cycles has it been involved in? Even if it was one, that is one too many. How many lives in this cycle  _alone_  has it been involved has it eradicated?"

The question loomed over everyone's head. It was a question that he had and had kept him up at night following his first night after the fall of Earth. These machines had killed a galaxy of trillions every fifty thousand years spanning back to damn near the beginning of the universe… Taking the eons of extermination, a city seemed like such a small price to pay to knock one of these fucking bastards out.

"And would you be so quick to this if it was a turian colony?" Officer Lee demanded to know, his expression of disgust etched right into his voice. "Those are thousands of  _humans_  you're talking about killing now… Would you be this goddamn philosophical if you had some skin in the game?!"

And there it was. It was exactly what the Reapers loved most about the organics they exterminated; it was the organic predilection towards suspicions of others outside their race that the Reapers preyed upon time and time again. If they were going to survive, they all had to do it together, even if it meant doing the hard things.

"You don't know a goddamn thing about her. She would make the exact same call," James growled at the cop, jumping headfirst into the defense of his partner. "This isn't a turian or human thing. This is a matter of survival for all of us as organics. If we have a chance to kill a Reaper, then we have to take it, no matter the cost."

James' words brought any further debate on the subject to a close. The cops were understandably livid, Private Nascimento looked torn between agreeing with command and his own loyalty to the two officers he had been through hell with protecting god knows how many civilians from the Reapers. Next to him, Soka looked at him strangely, like she hadn't expected the show of loyalty in the face of her advocating for the sacrifice of thousands of innocent human lives.

Standing up, Private Nascimento raised his rifle back up and looked down on the two lieutenants. He was still troubled with everything, but he was not about to express that so openly.

"When you two are ready, we'll link up with the civilians and move to the port, okay, sir?" he addressed only Merrick, he remained unable to look at the turian in the face of what she was calling for. James suspected that somewhere deep inside the private, he was suspecting that he was coming to terms with the fact that Soka's analysis of the situation was the only correct course.

Soka remained still, refusing to look at the accusing expressions of the civilians as they followed Nascimento down the steps of the tower, leaving the two of them alone once again. Soka waited silently still until she was certain that she was out of the earshot of the others before she gasped and dropped her expression of firm conviction and revealed the full self-loathing she felt for herself for what she was calling for. She looked his way, her eyes wide.

" _Now we're both bastards…"_

It was all Soka could get out before her eyes widened even more. She launched herself towards the edge of the tower safety railing and vomited over the side. James followed after her. He stood up and joined the turian as she hung her head over the edge expelling her stomach contents, which appeared to be primarily water. Unsure of what to do, he reached out placed his hand on her carapace.

"We can't shy away from this," she muttered out to him as her talon wiped her mouth. "Tens of thousands of people are going to die because of us… because of  _me_. And here I wanted to save everyone I could. I don't even know if it will work… best case scenario, we kill it… worst case… we disable it… knock it out of action. I guess I could take every minute that thing is trying to recover as a good sign… and if we get back to command, we can have the navy direct some ships to finish it off, right? What do you suppose the odds this will kill the-"

"Soka  _breathe_ …" James spoke up, cutting her off as he reached out and pulled her gently from the edge. "Just breathe, and come with me."

The turian rounded back to face him. She nodded and fell silent as she allowed the human to guide her back to where they had been sitting. He helped her back down and took a seat next to her. His hand remaining on her carapace as he watched the woman attempt to find some sort of stability in the shadow of the plan she was advocating for.

In spite of it all, James had to admit that he admired her display of strength. She said exactly what needed to be said. When he thought they were down to option two, and Private Nascimento just wanted to run and hide, she presented the unspoken third option and did not shy away from defending it. The hardest option was now the only correct option.

"This is the right move," he reassured her. "I'm shitty at making the hard choice, but this is clear as day to me. You are right… we're trading a few thousand lives for that one ship genocide."

Soka did not reply. She continued to hang her head in shame. James could not even begin to imagine the place she must have been in. If the roles had been reversed, if he was the one who had to advocate the destruction of thousands of turian lives to turians, he could only hope to have had even half of the empathy she seemed to have held for the human she had marked for death. Silently he wondered if she was even a career soldier to begin with… Perhaps she was a reservist… if that was the case; he wondered what she did outside of her military service…

"You know…" he observed, his voice growing light in hopes to lift her mood up from the display of despair. "With all things considered, I think you should be in command of this mission now."

Soka blinked. Slowly she looked up and met his eyes with her own. She titled her head as though she had been confused.

" _You_  were in command in the first place?" she asked, her harmonic tone touched with an inkling of humor.

With a grin spreading onto his face, James shoved her shoulder softly.

"Which one of us is the human on a human colony world?" he reminded her as they both were illuminated in Reaper red once again. "And much more importantly, which of the two got rejected for promotion more?"

That was all it took. The turian finally broke her through her depression just enough to emit a small barking laughter at his expense. To get her back into combat worthiness, he would do whatever it took. Even at the cost of his self-respect. She was a good investment.

"You're right; you were  _definitely_  in command of the partnership. I just don't know how I can live up to your example…" she said mock mournfully, reaching out to take his hand off her shoulder. "You know, I need to know how it is you get rejected so many times for a promotion for such a stupid excuse…"

The two of them continued to laugh for a little while longer and slowly the two of them fell into a comfortable silence as they both continued to be soaked in the rain and the looming Reaper threat just out of their sight. They sat there together in spite of this misery, James' hand being still clutched by Soka's talon tightly.

"I don't like this plan in the slightest…" she confessed, staring straight ahead into the darkness. "…but thank you for supporting me."

James glanced at her. He nodded with a faint smile.

"Well, you know me…" he reassured her. "I got your back whenever you need it…"

As James' went to pull his hand away from Soka's, her grip tightened on it. James tried not wince openly, so he watched as Soka stood back up and pulled James' back to his feet as well. He nearly collided into her and quietly, the two of them stood in much closer proximity then need be.

"I know you do…" she replied quietly. "…Comes with the partnership."

Still standing together in a silence for a little while longer, Soka finally allowed her grip on his hand to be released and with that, Soka and James were back on the clock. They collected their helmets and rifles and made their way out of the observation tower. They had civilians to move and a Reaper to murder.

…


	5. -10:17:10

**-10:17:10**

…

In total, there were ninety-one civilians, three military and two civilian law enforcement personnel that would be making the  _MSV-Gola_  their home for the foreseeable future... that was if the Reapers would let them.

There was a small wave of relief which washed over Soka as she, James and the rest of the armed troops led the unarmed civilians towards the New Esperance Spaceport. The freighter was slated to comfortably carry 125 people. More than enough room for everyone they had gathered.

So in groups of twelve to fifteen over the course of several hours, both James and she along with Private Nascimento and the security personnel led them to the port. Larger groups might arouse detection and they were already taking a large enough risk as it was.

With the final group safely transported to the port, James and she went to work. They collected weapons and supplies off the dead Alliance sentries, and set up a small stockpile, they moved around the perimeter sentry guns into kill zones in case the Reaper Dreadnought hit with infantry first. With that completed they turned their attention to the most dangerous part of the job: disarming the colony killing weapon of mass destruction so that they could turn it into an even bigger weapon of mass destruction.

Even with a few hours to process the Reaper murder plot, it was still a daze to her that they were already deep into the plan. The bomb was disarmed and the two of them were carefully loading it out of the ship and setting it into a commandeered cargo truck as the delivery vehicle.

Between the fast march into the city, the various running firefights and now all this manual labour, exhaustion was starting to set in for the both of them. It was mutually decided they would maneuverer the bomb into place in eight hours. Enough time to get something to eat in them, and then get some rest and sleep. Well, at least whatever they could get while the Reapers roamed freely.

Glancing to one side, she found James there. He was out of his body armour and was picking through his MRE as though he had little interest in eating it. Like the whole affair was a chore to him. She couldn't blame him for his lethargy. He was likely coming down from the stimulants he had been using for days on end to get him to where the two of them met.

She had to admit that he had impressed her more than her initial appraisal of him. With him not turning his back on the civilians when it would have been so much easier to do so, he proved himself to her to be someone worthy of her respect. This only increased between defending her indefensible decision to sacrifice New Esperance his unconditional display of loyalty to her. She fully expected that his allegiance to his own species would win out. But it didn't, he stayed true and stood with her in spite of everything.

There was a strange pang in the pit of her gut. Something foolish was festering in the back of her thoughts which she refused to give any sort of serious credence. It had to be induced by the close quarters she was working with the human in. Combat related emotional attachment. He was the first person she met following the decimation of her platoon. He got her back to her feet and gave her purpose. That was the extent of what was going on. It was simple gratitude that kept her as close as she was to James Merrick.

Yes, that was it. There was nothing else to it.

Besides it was a foolish notion to begin with and completely in appropriate considering they were in the middle of a warzone, planning the demise of a Reaper and about to be hit with the consequences of said plan. The last thing she needed to be wondering was just how smooth human males were…

Soka poked through her MRE's moodily. She had to be realistic. To think that a human male would be attracted to a turian… it was inconceivable. An asari, sure… why not. Quarian was a possibility…maybe… perhaps… if they had some sort of sick fetish for latex and extremely safe sex. But finding a breast-less turian attractive…? It was a silly idea to even contemplate, wasn't it? Besides, she was under the impression human males liked to nibble on soft flesh (or in the case of the perverted quarian fetishes, environmental suits) not plate chitin-

Soka gave her head a mental shake and focused all that she could on the mission and not the human. It was a stupid feeling that would have to go away. Thankfully for her, the mission would keep her mind off it until they got off of Eden Prime. Perhaps then something could be talked about. Get it out of the way… But considering Merrick's penchant for teasing, she was not sure she could live it down.

" _And just who is that?!"_

Soka looked up from her food and found James was standing, she watched stunned as his battered expression brightened in a way she hadn't seen before. There, in Private Nascimento's arms was a small human infant he was clutching against his chest like it was his own. The private rounded back in a slight shock and found the Lieutenant was almost hovering over the smaller man.

"Wish I knew for certain," Nascimento addressed his superior, finding his senses. "I found her screaming in a bassinette outside of her home two days ago. Her parents were dead… I imagine her medical records are off world to identify her…"

Soka felt another small pang, but it did not seem to faze James in the slightest as he hung out one of his index fingers to the child as though it was some sort of pet he was trying to play with. Wordlessly, James looked to Nascimento, who hesitated for a moment before he pulled the infant away from his chest and offered it out to James' quavering hands. Soka frowned at the small tick she noticed in him. He seemed to carefully controlling his every movement.

James chuckled softly as the small infant squealed and whimpered as it found itself in strange arms. There was only the briefest of struggles until she settled down at the sight of James' finger being waved in front of her again. The infant blinked and reached one chubby hand out to take it like it was a toy. James' expression lightened up as he placed his forehead against the small infant's.

As Soka tilted her head at the display of human affection for infants, the human only gave her the briefest of smiles, before he rubbed his nose against the infants and said something to the effect of  _'Eskimo kiss!'_  (Whatever that was) and grinned as the baby squealed with delight and placed her fist into her mouth, drooling as she looked up at the man happily.

"Oh… well aren't you the  _sweetest_  thing I've seen in weeks," he cooed to her like she was his own. "Well… with possible exception to the Lieutenant when she's not advocating option two…"

Soka narrowed her eyes into a sharp glare at the human.

"I haven't advocated option two for  _hours_!" she nearly squawked at him, scandalized that he insisted on bringing it up yet again.

But James wasn't having any of that at the moment. He was enamoured by the child. She was sort of… touched by it. It was a nice break from the death they wadded through to get to this point. That and he seemed so…  _natural_ … at least for a human. He probably wouldn't get away with that in traditional turian child rearing.

"Oh, never you mind Miss Meany McGrumpy Turian over there… she just wants us both to explode in a hail of grenade fire and shrapnel taking as many Reapers with us! Doesn't that sound fun? yaaaay!" James spoke to the child directly as though it could comprehend him. "…You know, I think Soka would like to hold you, don't you agree? Yes you do,  _oh yes you do_!"

Revealing her teeth, Soka shook her head quickly. No… no this wasn't what she had signed off on.

"Oh no… No… I am fine, thank you…" Soka mumbled out, her talons rose in front of her as she stepped back away from the encroaching man and infant, who was now staring at her wondrously.

"Oh, she acts the stern one, but she just wants to hold a baby!" James spoke again to the baby as he backed Soka into the corner. Behind them Soka could see Private Nascimento grinning somewhat at the interaction.

"James, I really don't know what to do and… oh…"

And just like that Soka had found herself cradling the infant in her arms. James stepped back and in quiet amusement, he watched as Soka held her first infant. She came from a large family with many younger siblings that came before her. Not once had she had an interest in interacting with an infant. She stood there in a state of stunned silence as the child poked and prodded her.

"Well… hello," was her awkward sounding first words to the child as she ignored the child pulling on her left mandible as she had pulled on James' finger. "…So you are a human infant… A female, I suppose? You're very…  _flabby_. Are human infants supposed to be fat?"

James emitted an outraged hiss. It seemed more for dramatic effect then a serious display of outrage for her remark.

" _She's not fat_!" he snapped back scandalized by the suggestion. "She's cuddly. Just because she's not made out of iron and can float in water, doesn't mean she's fat!"

Soka closed her eyes and exhaled sharply as the girl ran her hand over Soka's chin, taking in the grooves with apparent delight.

"Because I am holding a baby in my hands, I am not going to take offense to that-"

Without warning the infant hiccupped and vomited all over Soka's chest plate and exposed neck. The white and yellowed viscous slime stunk of something utterly alien to her nose. She stood there in a state of shock as she silently wondered if this was a common thing for human infants to do. If it was then they were truly disgusting creatures in spite of their outwardly pleasant appearance. Worst yet, the infant looked as though she was having the time of her life in vomiting all over the turian.

"Oh… well this is  _lovely_ ," she said she struggled to remain as cool and collected as she could covered in baby vomit. She looked to James, who was physically shaking from the suppression of his laughter at her expense and added in a low tone. "Thank you for this experience. I will value it _always_."

Thankfully for her, Private Nascimento stepped forward with a towel in hand and took the infant girl out of Soka's grasp and had enough sense look sympathetic to her plight.

"Sorry… I think she was breast fed. She's still getting used to the formula I scavenged…" he explained as he stepped back from the still in shock turian. He looked to James, who was still fighting to keep his expression straight and added. "I'm going to go change her and lay her down, sir. You both should catch some sleep as well. I'll take watch and wake you two when we're moving out."

Nascimento and the infant left, leaving James struggling to remain in control and Soka, who was attempting to clean the infant vomit off her armour. Growling lowly, Soka gave up on her dignity and simple pried her chest piece off in front of the human, leaving her feeling exposed in just her soft suit. Ignoring her trace of embarrassment, as James watched her; she dropped the plate armour down onto the table and went to work scrubbing it off. She would probably have to use industrial cleaner to get rid of that retched stench….

Ninety-two… she hadn't counted the infant before, but the child made ninety-two civilians rescued from this hell. She took a little comfort in that as she cleaned herself up, washing her neck and hoping that she would not get a rash from it. Another life that would be spared the Reaper menace…

Or her plan…

"We're saving that child, you know," she heard James say finally, his voice returning back to his relatively professional tone. "That's thanks to you."

Soka did not respond as she continued to scrub her armour. She did not deserve praise for accidentally forcing him to change his mind on the whole rescue mission. Not when her conscious was heavy with her other decision. The one that loomed over them as large as the Reaper they were facing.

"… _and condemning many others…"_  she whispered to herself. It was just loud enough for the human to hear it.

"I doubt there are many children left when the Reapers hit…" James tried to comfort her. "And by the looks of it, I think he rescued them all…"

Soka glanced up and looked in the direction of where Nascimento had taken the infant. Surrounding him was a dozen kids, all of which seemed to be under the age of human adulthood. Nascimento was smiling and talking adamantly at them as he was changing the infant. Occasionally the children would look James and Soka's way with wide eyes. It was like he was reassuring them that the two newcomers they had picked up had a fool proof plan to get them to safety…

"You know… that kid is a goddamn hero…" James voiced exactly what Soka was feeling. "Note to self, I am recommending Private Eduardo Nascimento for a field commission and a medal… Don't know which one, but sort that detail out later."

Soka turned back and found that James' omni-tool was activated and in vocal record mode. Smiling half-heartedly at her expression of confusion, he deactivated it and joined her, leaning against their table as she continued to stare at him leery. Forgetting her armour, stood up properly and looked at him carefully. James had lost all traces of humour now and bowed his head, his hand shaking; it reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Taking notes… well… sort of a record of events…" was his mumbled explanation, still unable to look her in the eye. "I figure there should be a record. If I don't make it-"

Soka reached her talon out and took his forearm, her eyes narrowed at the human she was inspecting.

"You'll  _make_  it, James," she sternly reassured him.

James looked at her like she was deluding herself. His hand reached down and slowly he pulled up the side of his shirt, his other hand, pulled down his pants slightly. Soka blinked as she stared at the serious looking internal bleeding discolouring his pale flesh was bruising that was black, yellow and purple; it was such an awful sight. It wasn't the drugs he was coming down off of that had made him so lethargic. They had kept him moving, kept his mind off the pain and now they were wearing off. For who knows how long he was in more agony then he allowed her to know about.

Soka looked up and found the human smiling at her grimly. Like she was finally in the last secret he possessed. As she inspected him closer, she could see how awful James actually looked. He was paler than when they first met, large black bags were under his eyes. He was blinking rapidly, like he was trying to keep his eyes open.

"Look, Soka… I'm not feeling too hot… and I'm not moving so well and no amount of medi-gel is going to change that fact until I get to a hospital," he spoke gently to the turian still clutching onto him. "We're going out into a hotspot in a matter of hours… There's a good chance I'm not going to come back from it-"

" _Then don't come!"_  she hissed at him, her face snapping closer to his so that anyone watching would not see the concern and fear that she was washed in.  _"Keep the ship secure, I can take the mission myself!"_

James shook his head.

"You need all hands on deck for bomb delivery, Lieutenant," he refuted as he pulled the omni-tool off his arm and extended it to her. As she stared at it, he added. "Soka, listen to me. I want you take this, and in the event of my death, I want you to deliver it to Command and my personal effects… I have letters to be given to my siblings… my mother…"

Soka shook her head and pushed her hand away from as she stepped back. She wasn't having this conversation. Not now. As she advocated suicide, he stood there willing her to live in the face of his own mortality. Rubbing her face, she turned back and grabbed James by both his arms.

"You're going to make it, you foolish bastard," she reassured him, her face only inches away from his. "I decided that the only suitable compensation you can pay me back for knocking me out and tying me up is you taking me out on the Citadel and getting me good and drunk. So if you start with this morbid end-of-life planning, I am going to make you  _regret_  it!"

James remained silent. He just stood there looking at her in slight confusion.

"You don't want to die anymore?"

The question James had asked made Soka blink. Soka glanced at the floor and remained silent. James remained silent as well as he awaited her response.

Yes… she wanted to live. She was still alive and could do more for the fallen alive rather than joining them. She wanted help the united front against the Reaper bastards to the best of her ability, she wanted to help these civilians escape Eden Prime. She wanted to live with the ghosts of New Esperance. She wanted to tell the story of why a city had to be sacrificed to stop a Dreadnought from re-joining the galactic extermination program. She wanted to live… to have another day with James: a better day under better circumstances. She did not care about what it was defined as. Friends or something more… she just wanted another day with him.

"James, I want to live," she breathed to him as she looked back up at him. "But we're partners now, so you have to live as well. Understood, Lieutenant?"

Soka watched as through his slight grimace, James managed to smile for her. It was enough to bring a small smile to her face as well. He exhaled and nodded in apparent agreement. He would join the mission to the fusion plant, but he would let her take the lead and he would not take any risks, nor strain himself terribly. Then they would activate New Esperance anti-ship batteries, forcing the Reaper to deal with them personally. When it approached the one stationed near the power plant, the bombs would go off and the city – and hopefully the Reaper – would be erased in the sunrise James and she created.

"So... no more fatalism from you…" Soka murmured as she let go of James. "But since we're preparing for all things… I want you to take these…"

Moving to her left, Soka dug into the shoulder pouch of her armour and produced a fistful of identification tags and an OSD. Soka turned her attention back to the human who had directed his gaze to the personal objects she was presenting to him.

"Holotags of my men… and these letters to my parents," she explained to him as she glanced at the omni-tool in James' shaking hand. "If I'm going to take your death relics, you better damn well take what I have."

As James nodded, human and turian exchanged their morbid gifts and each looked at them carefully, respectfully. Soka attached the omni-tool to her arm, and James placed the OSD and fistful of tags into his pants pocket. Quietly they stood there together in an awkward silence. This wasn't exactly a conversation neither of them had wanted to have had… but it was better that they got it out of the way.

"So…" James spoke, naturally breaking the silence first. "Drinks on the Citadel? Is that like, what, a date or something?"

Soka snapped her head up and hit him lightly on the chest for the sly… potentially flirtatious comment. It was a playful hit, really. She didn't want to knock the wind out of him, all things considered. Anything more and James was liable to falling flat on his ass.

"James… _shut up,"_  was Soka's only warning as she struggled not to look too pleased that he had said that.

For the first time since they met, James would heed her warning.

**…**


	6. -07:31:58

**-07:31:58**

...

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, James rested his head against the cargo truck's back rest and ran his hand over the side of his chest plate. He tried his best not to look at Soka, who was watching with a great caution written in her face.

While he was asleep, Soka used her free time to retrofit his armour with a brace to wrap around his injury. Her theory was that it would keep the affected area compressed and might allow him better mobility. When asked why she hadn't slept, her explanation was to remind him that James had made her sleep only hours prior. There seemed to have been a small tinge of a blush on her face. Well… if that was even possible for a turian and not something he was just trying to characterize the turian with a human trait, he did not know for sure. James guessed that he just liked the idea that it might be possible…

Out of respect to her, James decided not to fluster the turian too much by asking why she would spend her sleeping hours to him. He supposed she would use the mission as an excuse, but she could have done the same with a bit of medical tape and bandaging. She did not have to go all out and modify his armour. Still, it was a thoughtful gift from her to him. He was taken aback by her display of tenderness. A trait he did not think turians possessed… but he supposed he too held onto some stereotypes.

While the gift was thoughtful, it wasn't exactly a nice gift. The trade off to this brace, it seemed, was an excruciating constant pain which he decided to remedy with good old fashion morphine he found in the spaceport medical bay and more amphetamines to counteract the drowsiness the morphine shot gave him. All he knew for certain was that he was going to be an absolute strung out mess at the end of this.

Somewhere off in the distance, the Reaper dreadnought roared out its siren call, and the ground shook as the Reaper took a step. It swayed the cargo truck and made James keenly aware of the RX-12 Doomsayer Eradication Device sitting on the floor between James and Soka.

Say what you wanted about Cerberus, but they weren't fucking around when they developed a bomb with the blast yield of twenty five megatons compressed into a weapon that weighed no more than twice his weight. Although it wasn't armed and probably would not have been triggered by a ground shift, but it still spooked the ever-loving shit out of him.

Twenty four hours ago he hadn't exactly planned on sitting next to a twenty-five megaton weapon with the intent on using it. He supposed he had his new friend to thank for that. If anyone should have been buying the drinks when they got back to the Citadel, it should have been her. What with her option two and now this… option three as he now called it.

He caught her looking at him once again. The concern she had for his healthy was noted and… touching. He faintly smiled at her out of reassurance. He felt like absolute shit, but he was high, pain free and raring to get this mission underway. He stood up and banged the wall leading to the cab of the truck.

"Remember the drill, you two?" he called through the wall. He remained silent as he waited for an answer from the two silent police officers.

" _We'll move the bomb into the plant and take positions outside and keep you alert to all activity,"_ was Officer Lee's response.

It was hesitant… like he did not like the plan. That was to be expected. They were aiding and abetting in the destruction of their city. While the explanation and justification had been spelled out to them numerous times, Lee and Abboud naturally were against it. He was not blind to the looks they gave both Soka and himself… but especially Soka. Soka, to her credit she did not address it. Oh, he knew full well it must have bothered her. This whole operation was her brain child and she clearly was uneasy with it. But it was the right course. Not many had a chance to destroy a Reaper.

"Good…" he said to himself. "Soka, you'll take the trolley inside, I'll keep you covered."

Soka stood up as James had before her. She stepped forward and bracing herself so that she did not fall, she quietly fastened the last of the straps James had left loose on his behalf. It seemed as though she was not about to take any chances and wanted to personally ensure that his armour was in top shape for what laid ahead of them.

"Still think we should have brought Nascimento…" she muttered to him as she fastened his neck guard tightly, unaware or more likely not caring, as the human squirmed by the sudden vice grip on him.

James could appreciate the sentiment. It was something he wanted – an extra military trained gun out here making a stand against potential occupiers of the plant. The problem was that someone trained had to stay behind and guard the  _Gola_  and the civilians. As much as Soka might have wanted  _him_  to stay behind, the mission was in part James' responsibility. Nascimento's responsibility was to the people he had saved. He would serve a far better guardian to them, than a critically wounded man could.

Of course, naturally Nascimento disagreed. He wanted in on the mission. It was a request Merrick had to put down by pulling rank on the man. He didn't want to do it, but it was the only option he had. It took a little effort and a lot of reassurances, but the soldier understood where he fit into the operation. Besides, he was being entrusted with the only escape route off planet. That was quite the responsibility in itself.

As she finished inspecting his armour, Soka stood next to him. She pulled her rifle off her magnetic strip, the weapon extending out in her hands. James did the same. Silently, the two of them stared at each other as they felt the truck round a corner and begin to slow down. There was nothing to say. They were in combat mode now.

The breaks hit hard out of the blue, the doors slid open, and out clambered Soka and James, their rifles raised and aimed on the encroaching Reaper husks shuffling towards them. They shot them down and directed their fire to whatever that stood up against them next. At the moment it was Cannibals, forcing the pair of them to seek cover before they fired back, cutting the nearest one in half and downing a second and third one.

Soka pulled a fragmentation grenade out of her bandoleer and threw it hard at a squad of Marauders, smacking one of them in the face. The grenade fell and midway down, it exploded, tearing three of them in half, a fourth lost a leg and collapsed, roaring and still firing at the two of them. Soka shot it clean through the head and rounded back to shoot down six more husks that tried to flank them, the seventh met its end at the hand of a hard smash to the head from James' rifle.

Scrambling out of cover, they bolted together at several Reaper Cannibals attempting to counter attack. James pounded four clean shots through center mass and shifted his fire to the next one as Soka sprayed their position with rapid suppression fire from her Phaeston. Their attentions diverted to more marauder fire that hit and flared James' kinetic barriers. Ignoring the agony as he dove to the ground, he raised his rifle from his prone position and shot out one of the former turian's legs, bringing it down to his level. As it screamed and pointed at him, James triple tapped it through the skull until it stopped screaming.

Bolting up next to him, Soka paused long enough to reach down and impressed upon him her strength by lifting him right up to his feet without a sweat. She pulled a captured Cerberus smoke grenade and laid down some visibility cover for the pair of them to dive in between a concrete girder and rolled over sky car, under which laid a managed corpse. The pair of them fired through the smoke and as it cleared they found nothing left standing.

Soka was the first to stand up. Fearlessly, she climbed to the top of the car for a better vantage point. She raised her rifle and fired off a burst of fire on several straggling husks. With the husks neutralized, the final threats in the immediate vicinity were clear for the moment.

"Clear," she shouted over the squad communication system the four of them were connected to. "Move it fast!"

James turned back to the truck and found Constable's Abboud and Lee were out of the truck. Decked out in Alliance armour, the two of them presented a much more formable sight then they did before. The two of them pulled the RX-12 out of the back of the vehicle and carefully they walked the explosive towards the front doors of the plant on the back of a trolley. Soka and James moved towards, taking a flank each, their rifles swinging and scanning for any sign of straggling Reaper drone.

They paused at the front doors. They appeared to be locked. But Soka had an answer to that. She stepped forward and pried the door open. James helped and together they forced enough room for the bomb and trolley to get through. Lee and Abboud pushed the bomb inside and let go. James and Soka followed after it and the door closed behind them, separating them from the Constables.

" _Okay, we'll deliver the weapon to the fusion chamber and find an alternative route out,"_  James spoke over the radio to the civilians that were separated from them.  _"Take cover out of sight and away from the truck. We don't want to draw too much attention it, copy?"_

" _Copy that…"_ the reply belonging to Abboud came back to him and Soka.  _"And take your time will you? I'd rather you not set that thing off right here and now."_

James emitted a small chuckle as he signed off. He had the exact same sentiments. Option three was his last resort death, he didn't want it to happen anymore then option two… but he did imagine that it would be marginally less painful then option two.

With the police now heading out to find some cover to keep an eye out on Reaper forces potentially moving in to investigate the disturbance, James turned his attention back to Soka, who was now examining the bomb. After several moments, she looked up and locked eyes with him once again. With a solid heave, Soka got the bomb moving just fast enough to let James take the point.

Taking their time, James and Soka moved from hallway to hallway, following the written directions through the sectors. They only paused long enough to clear the bomb's path of obstructions. Turned over equipment, bodies… The plant was a mess, but it seemed largely unaffected for the time being. No enemy contact… not what either of them had expected.

It wasn't long before both they and the bomb were in an elevator leading directly to the inner chambers of the fusion core reactor room. Neither of them spoke, there wasn't anything to say as they both stewed in the destruction they were moments away from turning into a reality. Soka was restlessly, her talons tapping away on a small terminal she had set up on the weapon. She looked awful, like death warmed up. She wasn't physically injured, but she was in clear agony as she finished working on the weapon.

The elevator opened and James stepped out first into the core room. Like top level it too was devoid of Reapers… It was all very peculiar. Perhaps it was just not a priority to them. The suppressing the human element seemed to have been their primary goal for the time being. Perhaps the wounded Reaper had assumed direct control over the ground forces and was using them to secure its safe zone. Its vast arrogance left this potential threat exposed for Soka and James' exploitation.

Turning away from the corridor leading to the core, James glanced at Soka who was tapping in the arming sequence by the looks of it.

"This is the last chance to back out…" he reminded her gently. "I'll support you in what you choose… but are you certain you want this?"

Soka looked up from the explosive device and looked him over with a grim expression. She didn't want it, but she did not have the vocabulary to express that desire. Instead her head gestured to the elevator.

"The bomb is armed, and counting down. We're committed. What I want is irrelevant now," she spoke in a stone cold tone. "Come James… let's get moving."

Giving the now armed explosive a final look, James nodded blankly and followed Soka back to the elevator. As she hit the top side panel, and the elevator hummed to life, Soka turned back to him and brought the detonation device out for him to examine. She was in a daze as she stood there staring at the power to destroy a city resting in the palm of her talon.

"I've set the weapon on a fail-safe timer," she murmured blankly as she tucked the detonator out of the way. "Six and a half hours from now the bomb goes off. That will be plenty of time to activate the citywide defenses and get back to the ship. Once the Reaper is inside a half kilometer of the power plant, we remote detonate the bomb. If the remote fails… or something happens, the bomb will go off within 90 seconds of missing the detonation mark. If the bomb is tampered with, it will go off… no chances."

Although he was privately impressed by her thoroughness in ensuring that the weapon went off in whatever circumstance, James nodded and held his low as he struggled to come up with something, anything he could say to lift the spirits of the morose woman standing next to him. As much as he wanted to lift her spirits, there was ultimately nothing he could say about the whole affair. What they just did was tantamount to mass murder.

"We're doing the right thing." He said to himself for what felt like the thousandth time since he told Soka they would not be helping civilians escape from this hell. It seemed so long ago, but now here they were not only not helping civilians, but actively involving themselves in their deaths. The handful they rescued was nothing compared to what they just did.

Soka looked up, her sharp eyes narrowed at him.

"You keep saying that like it makes it better," she pointed out incredulously. "We just murdered tens of thousands of people for a chance at killing a Reaper, Merrick. There is no ' _right thing'_  about this."

James wanted to reply, but the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. Their moment was over. They raised their weapons and stepped out into the main level of the plant. It was time to get back to the business at hand. Objective one had been complete.

Now came objective two. They would infiltrate the former System Alliance military command post two kilometers south of the Fusion plant. From there they would have complete access to the Alliance military defense network set up in New Esperance between when Cerberus withdrew from Eden Prime and when the Reapers hit the planet. A plethora of anti-ship rocket launchers and mass accelerator cannons had been installed to meet them. They went silent and mostly unused when the Reapers launched a total ground offensive and overwhelmed the command post, killing thousands of marines and naval personnel in the prospect. The fall of Fort Girard was the cataclysm that led James to Soka in the first place.

And now here he was going back with her. This luring attack on the dreadnought would be a small appetizer of revenge before the main course.

Gunfire caught his attention. It was Soka. She stood there in one of the offices and decided to make her own exit through the plate-glass window. She looked back to James and leaped through the broken window to the ground below. James followed after, but did so much more carefully. He couldn't risk aggravating his injuries any more then he already had.

As James joined Soka once again, the skies lit up in red and the Reaper emitted another blast of its weapon, followed by an explosion in the distance. It emitted another blast of its somehow even more evil Jericho's trumpet, and the earth shook once again, knocking James and Soka off their feet.

But none of this heart stopping terror was what bothered neither James nor Soka. As they stood up, they found themselves looking at a sight far more terrible in its implication.

Lee and Abboud were nowhere to be seen.

The truck was  _gone_.

At first James didn't think this was happening. He chalked it up to hallucination from the drugs and the internal bleeding, but as he did a double take, it was clear they weren't in the wrong location. Smoking reaper corpses were strewn across the parking lot from the firefight that they engaged in. Lee and Abboud had left them behind.

_They were stranded there…_

Soka stepped forward, her mouth hanging open, her eyes wide as she walked up into the devastation they caused against the local Reaper force. Slowly, she turned back to him.

"Where in the  _fuck_ did they go!" she shrieked at him like a woman possessed by a demon and surprising him with human profanity. "We told them to stay, right?! That was pretty important part of the whole  _ **FUCKING PLAN**_!"

As Soka reared back and started curb stomping a dead Reaper marauder, James turned away and activated him communication link back to the  _MSV-Gola_ , back to Nascimento. The other line opened immediately.

"Nascimento, this is… this is Merrick," James struggled to start. Rubbing the back of his neck, he added. "I just wanted to let you know that you are a good man, a good man who doesn't jump to an irrational state easily. You will listen to what I say and you won't react badly, but at the same time, you'll be diligent in what I ask of you to do for me, right?"

He was greeted with a long silence.

" _Sir, are you alright?"_

James watched in silence as Soka pulverized the marauder's skull into the pavement and her attentions turned to the husk it was lying next to. Like the marauder before it, it too got the Soka Junian special attention.

"I'm just great…" James lied through his teeth. "So… look, Private… Lee and Abboud kind of took the truck and left us at the plant and didn't wait for us. I installed a tracking device on it and linked it to the Gola's computer, so you could provide some navigation support. I want you to find it for me."

True to James' assumption to Nascimento's nature, the man remained collected. If he was upset, then he certainly hadn't audibly made that known to him. There was a small  _'huh'_  that emitted on the other end of the line before Nascimento came back on.

" _Sir…"_  he started.  _"This doesn't make sense… it says the truck is at the next objective. Why would they go there without you-"_

James disabled the line without giving the young man his thanks. He hobbled over to Soka stamping the Husk's head into the pavement still and grabbed her by her shoulder, forcing her to turn around and stare at him. She was well beyond furious. If there was an expression that said  _'I'm going to set you on fire and eviscerate you'_  it was exactly what the expression Soka was wearing would look like.

"Soka, listen to me... Lee and Abboud went on to objective two without us…" he informed her.

He did not say what he was thinking… no… what he knew was going on in the minds of Lee and Abboud. Silently he watched as she calmed down by refocusing her fury to deduce what the two civilians were plotting. Her mandibles flared open as she stared at him. Soka's realization of what was happening was clear.

"That command center would have more than just direct access to the anti-ship batteries…" she breathed out loud as though she was trying to get him to confirm her theory. "It should have the ability to broadcast live signals over the citywide intercom… you don't think they would… no, they could not be that foolish!"

James nodded. As well intentioned as they might have been, Lee and Abboud clearly still thought the Reapers were unthinking drones. That they wouldn't be tapped into the communication networks hardwired into the planet. That they wouldn't hear their plea for the citizens of New Esperance to evacuate the city before it was too late. They were on the precipice of ruining their one shot at killing that Dreadnought.

But so far, it seemed as though Lee and Abboud hadn't gotten their message out. The Reaper would have fled by now and the bombsite would be flooded with Reaper ground forces. Soka and him still had time to run the two or so kilometers through Reaper held territory to Fort Girard and stop the two of them from committing to the act… one way or another.

With any luck, the Reapers had already dealt with the two of them.

"I hate to say it, but the Reapers are now our best friends with regards to those two…" James informed Soka as he grabbed his rifle. "Come on, we got to double time it!"

Knowing better than to protest on the grounds of his physical injuries, Soka nodded instead and together the pair of sprinted off in the direction of objective two. Both of them were well aware of what was going to have to happen if the Reapers hadn't dealt with the civilians first…

**…**


	7. -03:57:38

**-03:57:38**

**…**

If there was one thing Soka was happy about as James and her ran through the deserted, burnt out remains of New Esperance, it was that the two bastards Lee and Abboud followed the plan to a letter and had abandoned the truck at the predetermined insertion point. It was still running, as though they were in a rush to make it into the remains of Fort Girard.

As the Reaper shook the city as it continued its march, Soka carefully lead the two of them into the outer perimeter of the base. She glanced at the walls and noticed the yellow and black diamonds that had been partially scraped off or had graffiti overlapping them. It appeared as though the base itself was first set up by the Cerberus occupation force before it was captured and repurposed for Alliance use. It would have made sense to repurpose the base. Eden Prime as a whole was a world that served as a model to other species about human expansion. They had likely only maintained a small militia until the Saren incident three years ago…

 _Saren_ … the vanguard of the Reaper invasion… She hoped that disgrace of a turian suffered in his last days and into his afterlife.

The sound of Reaper ground forces brought them to a standstill as they entered through a gaping hole left by an artillery shell. As they climbed through they paused and took in their new surroundings. Stunned silent, Soka could feel nothing as they moved through the open mass grave that was the remains of the 58th Marine Division. There must have been hundreds… thousands of bodies strewn across the yard, even more were in the process being dumped into piles by husk workers, paying no attention to anything but the task of collecting the dead. She doubted they would have reacted eve if they noticed them, even in self defense. The Reapers could always process more slave labour.

As for the men of James' unit, they did not go down without a fight. For every human that fell it seemed like the enemy lost times three. If these humans had held fast against a turian attack, she would have been humbled by courageousness of this last stand. But the Reapers were inexhaustible in their ground assets. They would have ruthlessly and unemotionally threw wave after wave against the division just to silence these souls. They would not pause, they would not mourn. They would simply repurpose the dead into more shock troops and pressed onwards on their campaign.

She could not look at James. Even if they were both wearing helmets, she could only imagine the agony of roaming through hundreds, likely thousands of his comrades who defended their post until the very end. The silence was a deafening one, only broken by the sounds of the open Alliance radios and the endless shrieking of Reapers over the frequency as the dead who wore those communication links were being processed into more drones for the Reaper Dreadnought.

Soka turned her attention away from the horrifying mental image and hunched over as she heard the familiar shuffling she did not want to hear. Glancing round the corner stood a dozen or so humans. Some of them were in military grade armour, some civilians. All of them armed and comingling with the Reapers like they were in sleep walking.

So… it appeared that the Reaper Dreadnought was in the process of having drones transport victims to the ship for indoctrination. Well… it was to be expected. She tried not to think about her greatest unspoken fear about the indoctrination process: that the victim was still in there somewhere, a prisoner in his own body which answered the will of the Reaper master.

Killing them… it would be a kindness.

As the two of them took cover behind shrapnel riddled wall protecting Fort Girard, Soka held her hand up to keep James from moving forward. If they were going to do this, James would be providing her cover fire from here while she flanked them and drew the attention of the Reaper drones left guarding the Fort Girard.

She bolted out of cover, her movement immediately noticed by a pack of sentry marauders. As they fired on her, James swung his rifle through one of the blast points in the wall and fired on them, catching them out right exposed. One rounded back and fired on him as it fell. Making sure he was ok with a glance back in his direction, she shifted her fire onto the former comrades of James'. They shrieked at her in a way she never heard a human sound like before in her life as her rifle rounds overwhelmed their shields.

They did not even fire. They just stood there  _screaming_  at the two of them as bullets broke through their body armour and cut them down. It was as though the Reaper controlling these poor bastards was engaging on a whole other level of psychological warfare with them.

With the immediate area pacified for the time being, Soka gestured to James to come. He did, but he was in a sort of daze as got out of his cover and approached him. This last stand had shaken him in a way that surprised her.

In the short time that she had known the human, she found that his greatest strength was not physical, or even martial in nature. It as his ability to compartmentalize that impressed her the most. He would try to lighten the mood or say something off balanced to mask his fear. He could hide the cracks in his motivation and carry on with the task at hand. But this was different altogether. Perhaps there was more to it. His wounds were serious and his health was deteriorating. The drugs he was using stopped being a benefit and was now likely making it worse for him in the long run. It was affecting his thinking, leaving him a frayed mess.

James remained silent and watched in horror as the Reaper labour force continued to pile the bodies, uninterested in the firefight behind them that took place. James raised his rifle and shot one down carrying the body of a female NCO. The creature made no noise; its compatriots paid it no mind. Soka reached out and touched his riffle, lowering it back to the ground.

"James," she softly spoke to the human. "Now is not the time for this… When this is over…"

Soka trailed off as she noticed the misery in his eyes. She wished she hadn't said that. She wished instead she had the right words she could use to comfort her partner… her friend… but she didn't. All they could do was stare at each other a moment longer before James turned away and shuffled towards the entrance to the base.

Someway, somehow, the base interior was worse than the perimeter it loomed over. The walls were blasted with light rifle and grenade fire and painted in placed of murky dead human blood. Bodies were not simply shot like those outside, but instead were mutilated by close-quarter combat. As they moved through the decimation, it just kept getting worse to look at. The Alliance had led a desperate defense to keep command and control active for as long as possible. So many lives sacrificed to keep field units updated with the latest Reaper intelligence.

All these lives lost… and in the end it just was not enough. The Reaper intelligence that led this ground campaign had done this all before. It was like an old shoe to it, if she remembered the human idiom correctly.

Stepping over the corpse of an officer, Soka swept through the corridors, James remained five steps behind her. James' back was turned to her to cover their rear. Through their communication channel, she could hear the sound of James' ragged breathing. He sounded like he was close to physical and mental collapse as they moved through yet another pile of bodies.

They needed to get out of here. Find Lee and Abboud, deal with them and just leave. As she noticed a dead human marine hanging from a ventilation shaft she found herself wondering if the Reapers just swarmed in like a great wave and washed out the resistance with fire and their own blood.

Without warning, she was caught in the side with a shotgun blast. Her shield died and the pellets collided with her armour, kicking her off her feet and dropping her into a pile of corpses. She heard James say something expletive and the sound of boots running away, but it didn't matter. James dropped down and started to examine her, his hands searching her armour for signs of penetration.

"I-I'm okay…" she mumbled as looked up at him, dazed. "I'm fine…"

The sound of something metal hit the wall nearby. They looked and found an armed grenade sitting there far too close for comfort. Yowling in pain, James reached out and dragged the dazed Soka out of the blast range with little effectiveness. The grenade exploded and showered the two of them with debris and shrapnel flaring the shields.

Abboud and Lee… they were trying to stop them.

Ignoring the pain in her side, Soka stood up and clasped James on the shoulder out of gratitude. Both of them stood up and followed the footsteps, their rifles back up. Another shotgun blast entered the wall behind them and Soka had enough of it already. She pushed her back against the wall and shot through the opposite wall as she heard footsteps on the other side. James hunched over and checked the corner. He turned back to look at her.

" _It's Lee…"_ he spoke over their channel. " _He's bleeding hard, but he's gone to the command centre."_

Soka did not reply, and instead stood up and followed after James. Sure enough blood splatter was on the opposite side of the wall, but she paid it no mind. The two of them followed the trail right back to the centre. Nothing was on their minds but one thing: stopping this from going any further. Lee was wounded but there was still a way out of this for them if only the constables saw things their way.

" _-keep still, let the medi-gel set…"_  they heard Abboud say as they reached the doorway leading to the centre.  _"Once we broadcast, we'll get out of here."_

That was all the confirmation they needed to hear. Soka stood up and charged into the room, James right next to her. They moved up the stairs leading to the command and control overwatch station and found Abboud in the middle of treating Lee's wound.

"Stop what you're doing and step away from the terminal!" she called out to them, her rifle raised at the pair of them.

The pair of them looked up to face down the two rifles aiming at them. Neither of them was scared by the sight. Lee sat there in the puddle of his own blood, clutching his wounds and looking up at the turian with nothing short of hatred in his eyes. Abboud's hands were raised in front of her. She took a step back from her partner and moved towards the communication relay. In front of the two of them were their weapons. They were unarmed and had no tactical advantage.

With James' rifle still aimed at the pair of them, Soka lowered hers and reached up to pull off her helmet. Wearily she stared at the pair of them and took a step forward.

"I know you think you're doing the right thing. But doing this means we lose the element of surprise," she spoke directly to Abboud. "We lose the chance to turn that Reaper into a pile of rubble. We can't just ignore this opportunity."

"Exactly," Abboud snapped back at the turian. "If we broadcast the message, we can bluff the Reaper into leaving, buy us time to go and evacuate more people out of the city. What is more important to you? A chance… a mere goddamn chance, or a certainty at saving lives?"

Bluff the Reapers? These two had to have been delusional…

" _Are you two mad?"_  James shouted back at her.  _"It would just land somewhere else on the planet. You're not saving lives; you're shifting the pile of shit onto others."_

"Better them then us." Lee managed to get out through the blood streaming off his lips.

Giving him a sharp glare, Abboud turned back to face Soka.

"We agreed to help Nascimento on the grounds that once we got his civilians out safely, we could return and keep smuggling people out of New Esperance," she explained herself to Soka, her voice raising out of her bubbling fury. "But then you two  _bastards_  show up, offering an escape off the planet in exchange for nuking this city and every inhabitant it for a chance to kill that thing... and it's not a sure fire thing, but a chance."

Soka remained silent. Abboud was not wrong in her assessment of the situation. She had no idea how much firepower it would take to kill the Reaper slowly encroaching on them. What she did know was that they had to try and that the wheels had already been set in motion over an hour ago. If these two got their way, there was no way for them to save the amount of lives they were hoping to.

"This argument is pointless," Soka spoke in a low tone as she took another step forwards towards the human female. "The bomb is in place with three fail safes to ensure the bomb goes off inside a few short hours. You won't even have time to gather any sizable civilian population and escape the bomb radius which is going to upwards to seventy-five kilometres outside the city limit factoring in the fusion core explosion. The only way that bomb gets disabled is by me… and I'm not backing down from it."

The devastation in Abboud's demeanour was palpable. Soka was no expert in human body language for the time being, but she watched as the human stared at her as though she had been betrayed. Soka could not help but understand the reaction. Soka hated herself as much as the woman hated her… but the decision was final.

" _You bastards, you absolute_ _ **bastards**_!" she screamed at the two of them. _"Those are our families you just killed! I have a husband and children still out there. All of this is for them, and you went ahead and **killed** them?!"_

Next to her, Lee attempted to push himself up off the table. Ignoring Soka and James, Abboud moved to her part and wrapped her arm around Lee's waist to keep her friend from collapsing right on the spot.

" _Farah… Farah, they still have a chance… Leave me here and go find them…"_  Lee breathed to her, attempting to settle his partner down.  _"I -I can still sound a general evacuation notice… a few hours could clear most of the city out…"_

Like Soka before her, James pulled the helmet off his head. His sickly pale visage startled her; it startled Abboud and Lee as well.

"With the Reaper forces  _slaughtering_  them as they run!" he shouted down at the two of them. "Don't you fucking get it!? There is no good ending to any of this. At least with us we get to damage... probably even destroy a goddamn Reaper! We don't like doing this anymore then you liked hearing what we're doing, but there is no turning back from this!"

Abboud was still glaring at Soka, rightfully glaring into the face that condemned her family unilaterally.

 _"I won't let you stop us…"_ she whispered to Soka. _"Not when some can still survive this. Even if it's one more person, it's worth it."_

Noticing the two of them were inching towards the console once again, Soka raised her rifle back up at the two of them. This conversation was over. She had only one final ultimatum to offer before she was forced to do something she never wanted to do in her life.

"You're leaving me with no options," Soka spoke as commandingly as she could while looking down her rifle sights at the two of them. "I'm asking you one more time… step away from the console-"

Lee and Abboud did not have a chance to react. Not to send the message out, not to surrender, not even to go for their guns. From behind Soka, the deafening roar of the M-97 Mattock in close quarters deafened her and she watched in horror as the two constables were torn apart by heavy rifle fire, spattering her with projectile blood. The two of them collapsed in place.

Soka rounded back and with wide eyes looked at James; his rifle was still aimed at Abboud and Lee. His eyes were as wide as her were. He looked like he was in a state of shock by his action. Slowly, he stepped forward as a cough caught their attention.

Sure enough it was Abboud. Her chest was bleeding profusely as she attempted to pull herself up. She reached up and pulled Lee into her arms, her breathing was wheezing, like a lung was filling up with blood. She sat there slumped over, cradling her fallen partner.

" _You… killed my best friend… I knew him since we were children… and you killed him,"_  she warbled out, her hand pushing through his hair.

James remained silent to the remark; he swung his rifle at the communication relay and shot it up until everyone in the room was certain that it was not working. As the rifle fire ceased a low coughing chuckle emitted from the constable darkly.

" _Doesn't matter,"_  she wheezed out to the two of them, not looking at James or Soka as she continued to cradle Lee.  _"…I messaged everyone I knew about… it. It'll spread… I had to do it. Slaughtering our own to stop them… makes us no better…"_

The silence remained thick between Soka, James and the dying woman. James exhaled and raised his rifle again. This time it was directed at Abboud. She did not look up. She did not even seem to mind her life was drawing to a close. Her attention remained locked on her deceased friend.

James fired one more single round, shooting the woman through the head. She fell back, her burdens gone. James and Soka were now alone to stew in what had happened and the knowledge that Abboud had already partially got her message out. Soka remained locked in place for a moment as she felt the warm human blood dripping down the front of her face.

Remembering their actual objective to being here, Soka forced herself back to reality and stepped over the bodies of Lee and Abboud and made her way to the command and control table. Silently she activated the defense network and attempted not to get anymore sick sat what they had to do.

There was no option left. It was bound to happen, and Soka would have been the one to shoot the well intentioned people dead. But she didn't. James took that burden from her, and she was so unbelievably grateful to him for that kindness from him. He killed people of his own species for her… It was… touching.

"I synched New Esperance air defense network to the Gola," she murmured as she stepped back to join James once again. "Let's go… before more Reapers come."

James did not reply. He just stood there staring at the two people he killed on her behalf. Soka's mandibles flapped open slightly and she stepped forward, reaching out to grab her friend by his wrist. It forced his attention away from the bodies and he tilted his head down to look at her. He looked so lost, so helpless, so unbelievably guilty for what he had to do…

"Thank you for doing that, James… you couldn't know how much I appreciate this…" she whispered up to him. "I don't know if I could have done it myself…. I was worried you might change your mind. Side with them…"

Soka closed her eyes as she felt James's hand reach up, gently rubbing blood off the side of her mandible.

"You know me, Soka… we might have known each other for a few short hours… but you know me well enough," he spoke finally. "I could  _never_  do that to you..."

Soka nodded, unable to look the human in the eyes. She knew that now.

**…**


	8. -02:12:54

**-02:12:54**

**…**

The ride back to the spaceport was done so in haunted silence.

Sitting with his head propped against the window, James tried not to think of the people he had murdered in cold blood. That was what it had been. Murder.

Lee and Abboud were no threat and had no chance to communicate with the outside world. He could have very well easily gunned the array until it stopped working first, but something in him had snapped. He did not know what it was. Perhaps it was the drugs and blood building up inside of his body that affected his judgment. Perhaps it was the amphetamines that leaving her a mental, paranoid wreck. Perhaps it was just old fashion outrage at the pair of them for contradicting everything James and Soka had done up to that point for something that would simply feel good to them.

Whatever it was, two people were shot dead in cold blood and it was he who had done it. He knew that plan they defended was about to kill thousands, but this… this had felt beyond personal. The absolute worst part was just how much he sympathized with their reasons for their act. They wanted to save lives in the face of everything. He completely disagreed with their decisions, but he could respect it.

Next to him, Soka remained coated in their blood. As she drove, he could see her misery. Between this and the weapon now armed and less than two and half hours away from detonating on its own, the weight of her decision was starting to get to her.

What neither of them wanted to address out loud was Farah Abboud's gasping dying words. That she had contacted people on a private line about what was going down. He did not want to think about it, so he pushed to the back of his mind until now, when he noticed the first trickling of refugees fleeing in the direction of the spaceport in small groups. It wasn't long before those small groups turned into mob the closer they got there until they finally reached the parking lot of the port and it was teeming with hundreds of people and vehicles attempting to make their way inside.

Soka stopped the vehicle and quietly, the pair of them watched the flood of people in stunned silence. There was no way that the ship could hold even one percent of the crowd.

"Didn't I say something about not wanting this to turn into Sophie's Choice?" James growled as he grabbed his gear from out of the back of the cab. "Yes, I said something about not wanting this to happen? So why in the hell did it happen!?"

Soka gripped the wheel of the truck as James pulled her rifle and helmet out for her and handed them off to her.

"Who would have guessed that a warning from law enforcement about New Esperance on the verge of being annihilated and a freighter being prepped would go viral?" she muttered as she leaned back into the seat. "What a genuine surprise. This is a completely shocking turn of events."

Huffing in annoyance and feeling suddenly sick about what was about to happen, James opened the truck door and climbed out, stepping out into the screaming and shouting crowd. Soka followed him and together, they pushed through the crowd with a combination of physical force and brandishing their rifles to force the crowd to part. It was a slow process, but they made it through to the front entrance and stepped inside.

Soka and James paused as they noticed the dozen or so dead civilians that weren't there before they left. Men and women gunned down by the automated defenses Soka and he had reactivated to assist Nascimento in defense of the facility. It was, however, intended for the Reapers…

As they approached the Freighter, its engines humming with life, they noticed Private Nascimento running down the gangplank towards then, his rifle out and ready. He looked like a mess. Blood was streaming down his face from what appeared to have been a bottle thrown at him. Apparently he had tried his utmost to reason with the crowd before they attempted to flood onto the Freighter and unknowingly run into a gruesome fate.

"Lieutenant…" Nascimento snapped out a salute. He glanced past Soka and James and added. "Where are Abboud and Lee? Are they still outside?"

It was a question they both anticipated to have to answer the moment James had executed the pair of them. James was in the camp of standing up and telling the truth to the young soldier. He needed to know that all of this was their fault and ended up paying for this with their lives. Exhaling, James stepped forward, but Soka pushed him back and stood in front of him. Her talon reached out and gripped the Private on his shoulder.

"They fell to the Reapers attempting to clear out a path for us, they died bravely," Soka spoke, her tone steadied as she lied right to Nascimento's face. "They wanted to save people, so we sent a message out to their contacts out of respect to them. We… never anticipated these many would show up."

James watched Nascimento step back from Soka's attempt to comfort him. Silently, he sat down on the gangplank and ran his hand through his bloodied hair. Lee and Abboud appeared to have been more than just people working for a common purpose to him. Like Soka had become to him, the war and the terrible uncertainty had made the three of them friends. Now they were dead, killed by his hands.

He looked over to Soka who turned back to look at him as well. Wordlessly, James nodded, grateful that she had stepped up before he did and glorified the two of them. To preserve the memory of those he had had fought with for so long. Perhaps this time the lie would be better service then the truth could ever be.

"Right… okay…" muttered Nascimento as he wiped his eyes and looked up to the turian and human. "Well, I loaded the civilians I brought in first. There's still space to give at least 150 people. It will be cramped, but that's all the ship's VI calculated that we can save. We don't have time to strip out anything to make more room, and I'm guessing there five times out here waiting on us. We need to prioritize survival. Children first, right?"

Soka and James nodded in unison. Yes, in a war such as this, the children had to be saved first and foremost. If there was any extra room, then they would figure out who could go next. James turned away and silently he activated his omni-tool, hooking the device into the ship's intercom signal and enabling external output, turning the tool on his arm into a microphone.

Silently he stepped back out to the doorway, past the dead bodies and out into the front of the crowd. The crowd was senselessly loud and panicky.

James exhaled and found what strength he had left. He raised the omni-tool to his mouth.

" _ **EVERYONE SHUT YOUR MOUTHS AND LISTEN!"**_ he shouted at the crowd.

That was enough to get everyone's attention. A stunned silence fell over the crowd and it seemed as though every face he could make out turned to face him. Ignoring a sudden shyness that washed over him, he stepped forward.

" _Here's the deal, people,"_  he continued, certain he had their complete attention. _"We are prioritizing off-world transportation by age starting with newborns to preteens, following that, anyone between the ages of 13 to 17 year olds. If you have children, send them up and we will find a place for them. Reuniting some form of family unit will get next priority seating. If there is room, one parent may accompany them off-world."_

There was a low rumbling from the crowd, like many of them thought it was unfair. Self-preservation was only natural… but now was the time to suppress that natural urge.

" _There's no room for anyone else. I'm sorry,"_  he went on, forcing his tone to be harder than before to drive the seriousness of the situation across to them.  _"If you fail to heed this order, the automated defenses have been activated as you know. Approach the vessel with intent to storm it and they will open fire, along with me and my unit; and the only one to be blamed will be you."_

He didn't say any of this lightly. He meant every word and he felt sick to his stomach to same them, but it was all necessary. Many of these people would undoubtedly die in the coming hours and days. But even if they did not get on the freighter, there was still a shot and with any luck, fear of their own mortality would motivate them unifying together for the sake of their survival.

" _There is still a chance to escape,"_ he pressed onward, hoping beyond hope they would heed what he said. " _I want combatant aged unmarried or childless males and females between the ages of 18 to 80 who are lowest priority to prepare your vehicles and whatever abandoned but serviceable transportation left here to move at full haste into the forests as fast as you are able to. I know you all want to leave this planet, but that isn't happening. This is the only way we're getting all out of here, and it will only be achieved if we all work towards the common purpose of survival. Now send your children up, there is little time left before the launch."_

James turned off the microphone and stepped back inside where Nascimento and Soka were awaiting them. Nascimento was working the Turret control, setting them on manual so that he retained control over the weapons systems. Now it was all up to the mob outside to make their move. Soka and James raised their rifles and waited for the worse.

… But that didn't happen…

Silently the three of them stood there, watching as the crowd outside started to par and dissipate as the single and childless survivors left to prepare for their exodus. They could see parents talking to their children, hugging them, giving them their final farewells before sending them off inside the port. Many of the younger ones were weeping. The preteens held onto their siblings struggling to be grown-ups to the younger children.

James and Soka lowered their rifles and stepped out of their way, allowing the children passage into the freighter. Both of them tried not to count, fearing that moment when they reached the maximum capacity, and most of all fearing the amount of children that would have to be turned away…

But in spite of the amount of children they had funneled into the ship, the load capacity came sooner than Soka and James could have anticipated. Nascimento had been doing the headcount and stepped forward, despair in his eyes as he noticed the next batch of children coming into the port in the thirty to forty range.

"Lieutenant, we don't have enough space left…" Nascimento voiced what James had feared the most. James shook his head. He was not hearing that. They had only just started loading the shuttle. He had not fully appreciated that ninety-three spaces had been occupied by Nascimento's group.

Exhaling and hating himself somehow even more, he rounded back to Nascimento.

"No... No… There has to be more room…" James immediately denied. "I want all the military aged men and women that were from your original group out of that ship!"

He watched in suppressed horror at the shock in the Private's expression. It was filled with a flash of betrayal.

"Sir, I-"

"We don't care if you made a promise. We don't get those sorts of luxuries here!" Soka snapped at Nascimento as the next group approached. "Now do it. That's an order, Private!"

As Soka went quiet, leaving her order looming over the three of them, Nascimento nodded and quietly turned away and trudged up the Gola's gangway and into the ship. From outside James and Soka could hear shouting. Soka turned away and stopped the next group of children from moving any further and silently, everyone watched as men and women left the ship, weeping and cursing.

James lowered his yes, unable to look at any of them out of personal shame. Silently he tried to justify it, that it was all in the name of giving as many children a chance to escape. It didn't matter. He still felt like shit any way he tried to frame it. He looked up and noticed Nascimento standing there emotionless. He was holding back his own tears as he paid his attention to the children that were embarking rather than the people he probably felt he had smashed all their hopes.

But it wasn't enough. It took two more groups of kids and teenagers before it became clear that there was simply no more room left. Everyone else would have to be left behind now. Looking at Nascimento for the briefest of moments James closed his eyes and exhaled as he came to peace with what had to be done. He chuckled to himself at the sheer absurdity of his own delusions. He knew this was going to happen the moment Abboud admitted she had told people. He just spent up until this moment pretending otherwise.

He turned away and opened his eyes, looking at Soka, his expression breaking into a reassuring smile as he reached out to grip her arm. She froze and turned to face him as well.

"I'm not going, Soka," he spoke gently to her. "A few others can take my place. So I'm staying here."

Incomprehension was locked on Soka's face. Like what he had aid was a bad joke. Since the moment they met, all James wanted to do was escape… and here he was now on the precipice of making that wish a reality, and now he decided he was going to stay?

So it didn't come to James as much of a surprise when Soka snapped her talon out and backhanded him as though it would knock his sense back into him. It didn't matter if she gutted him with said talons; he felt he was making more sense than he had been in years. It felt… right.

"You  _can't just_  do that!" Soka cried out, her talons gripping the sides of his chest plate. "You need to get to a hospital. You  _promised_  me you were going to live!"

James smiled as he shook his head.

"I said I would try, and I still can if I'm smart about it," he reassured her. "As for my health, I doubt the Reapers have killed the doctors in small settlements. I'll get treatment… but you have to go now… the mission is yours, your survival is paramount."

Soka remained locked eye with him, her mandibles flapping open. He wasn't sure if a turian could cry, but she was clearly upset with him. Still holding him, she glanced over his shoulder to face the next group of teenagers that were staring at the interaction between human and turian curiously. Unsteadily, she exhaled and nodded.

"Right, well I am staying as well then, and don't even  _try_  to guilt me out of it," she said, snapping at him. "We can go with the trucks. Get as far as we can… I'll find you a doctor. Maybe well make it off the world another time, right?"

Not believing her for a second, he nodded, if only to pacify her. As much as he preferred her to leave, to not look back and ensure her life was safe, he knew better then to protest it. He didn't have the energy and there was no time for it. So just like that the decision had been made. They would be staying on Eden Prime after all.

What a shitty deal.

"Sounds like a plan," he muttered to her. He turned to Nascimento and added. "Nascimento, load up as many kids as you can in Soka and I's place and get this crate moving!"

Nascimento's eyes widened as he looked from James to Soka to confirm they were indeed staying behind. As she nodded to him, Nascimento rounded back to James.

"I'm… I'm staying as well, then," he protested the order. "The ship has a VI and can map a relay jump. The older kids can keep watch over the rest!"

Pulling gently away from Soka to approach the Private, James stopped in front of the young man and shook his head. The gesture made Nascimento's expression contorted into an expression of rage and outrage for the denial of his request.

"I'm an Alliance soldier!" he all but screamed at James. "With all due respect, I'm standing with my C.O to the end, sir!"

The loyalty in face of everything was surprisingly touching. James ignored his guilt and smiled for him. Turning away to look at Soka, the pair of them came to a silent agreement. Soka stepped forward and pulled the omni-tool James had given to her out of her armour, as James did the same for Soka's OSD and holotags.

Taking Nascimento's hand and outstretching it, he placed the tags and OSD into his hand as Soka did the same for the omni-tool.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Private. More than you know. But I can't in good conscious let you stay… not when I have a vital mission for you to complete," he said to the soldier as he removed his own personal omni-tool as well and placed it next to the command one. "I need you to take those omni-tools to command, and tell them what happened here. Tell them that this world is lost… do whatever you have to do to convince them not to stretch our lines thinner by protecting this place. We're going to be just fine, I promise."

James reassured the devastated Private by rubbing his shoulder. He stepped back and watched as Soka approached the Private again, her talon grazing against the tags and OSD still in Nascimento's open hand. Silently, she reached up and pulled her own tags off her neck and placed it in his hand as well. Her Talon closed Nascimento's hand into a tight fist.

"I want you to take those tags to the Hierarchy Military affairs board for causality listing. My OSD and tag should be given to the turian consulate to be transferred to my next of kin." Soka spoke quietly, her voice rough as she struggled to maintain her composure. "Please… do the Lieutenant and I one final favour: Survive, Eduardo Nascimento. Find out the identity of that baby; make sure the children are safe from harm. Fighting for them is  _your_  fight now.  _Understood_?"

His eyes were red, but Nascimento still managed to nod in spite of being close to tears.

"Yes… yes ma'am. I-I'll do just that." He promised the turian as he pocketed their personal effects. "It's been an honour, Sir… Ma'am…"

Nascimento snapped out a salute. James and Soka returned it. They stood there in silence for a moment, before James dropped his hand watched as Nascimento gathered the last batch of children up and filed them to the  _Gola_. He followed them up the gangway and turned to them once again. His hand waved over the panel he stood next to and the gangway dropped off the ship. Silently he entered the ship, the sliding door closing behind him and sealing itself off.

Soka and James stood there in silence as they watched the freighter come to life and lift off the ground. As it began to make its ascent, the sudden roar of the anti-ship defenses had been activated. The city of New Esperance was now officially fighting the Reaper occupier with missiles and point defense guns. The Reaper roared overhead louder than it had since they realized it was there to begin with. It was a deafening scream from the behemoth. Slowly the ship began to pound the ground as it begun to move their way.

It was approaching the port…

It was approaching the reactor…

James couldn't help but laugh at the son of a bitch and what was about to unfold.

"The Dreadnought is taking the bait!" he heard Soka shout over her omni-tool channel to Nascimento. "Take off now. Go now dammit!"

With that the Freighter turned overhead 500 metres above them. It flared its engines to life and took off at a steady ascent; leaving Soka and James behind, simply watching their ship leave them behind.

"Well now…" James murmured to Soka "This  _really_  didn't go as I thought it would."

Next to him, the tension in the turian finally broke. She exploded into wild laughter which left her breathless as she reached out and clutched onto James for support to keep her from collapsing on the spot. In an insane world, trapped in an insane situation, laughter was the only thing left that they could do. James joined in and together they laughed in spite of their absolute personal terror.

"Reapers are incoming!"

The call came from the doorway. Standing there was a grimy and mud covered man with wide eyes. Soka and James recollected themselves and launched themselves in the direction of the man, filing past them to take position on an observation deck.

Sure enough they were coming in hard. It looked as though to be a battalion sized unit. There was nothing tactical in their movement. It seemed like the Reaper had sent them ahead just to pin down as many people as it could. They were expecting unarmed masses to tear apart.

Well… they were about to be in for a surprise. Soka and James gazed at each other, small smiles on their face as they both knew what was left... one last great effort.

"Get going now!" Soka commanded the human on James' behalf. "Between the defenses and us, we'll draw their attention. Don't wait for us; just get the hell out of here now!"

As the man nodded and left to go and warn his fellow survivors that they had to leave, Soka and James fired a volley down on the first contact of husks. It was enough to divert their attention away from the unarmed foes and to the armed military personnel shooting at them from a height over them. Half a dozen of the creatures fell, and the rest started moving at them.

James lowered his rifle as they stepped back from the deck together. He turned his attention back to Soka, who joined him once again. Her expression puckered up as she should shoulder to shoulder with James as the screaming of the Reaper drones were directed to them.

"Well, Soka," James murmured to his friend. "I guess this is it… option two is now on the table… I guess that I can't say I wanted it, but I can't say I'm surprised either."

Next to him, Soka bowed her head and nodded. She shifted her rifle to her left talon and grabbed his hand, lacing her claws into his fingers.

"I... guess it is," Soka agreed morosely. She looked up to him and added. "I am sorry it has to be this way, James… I wanted more time… with you… I mean... you still owed me all those drinks."

Next to her, James chuckled. Together they stood there hand in hand as they waited for first contact with the horde.

"Well… for the record, I feel the same," James replied softly as they both tried to ignore the screaming approaching them. "But… you know what though? I'm really not as scared as I thought I would be… good company, I guess…"

Soka's mandible flapped open, as if she wanted to say something. She instead looked up to him, searching his eyes to find if he was just going through the motions. He wasn't. He wasn't cared to die anymore, and it was all thanks to her. She had given him a purpose beyond anything they ever thought possible. They were about to make a difference in a war between the ants and the pest control.

All of this was her…

"It's an honour that I get to stand next to you, James. I'll die... Proud it will happen with you..." Soka murmured as she reluctantly let go of his hand to raise her rifle up as the sound of Reapers entering the port and the automated turrets started firing on them. It was almost time now.

"Likewise…" he started. James paused however and bit his lip, adding. "But... Soka… did you give Eduardo the detonator for the bomb by any chance? We were supposed to detonate the bomb in orbit, remember?"

Next to him, Soka froze up.

Slowly, she dug into her armour and recovered the detonator.

Together the two of them stared at it.

"Well, this is just  _fucking_  great…" James was the first one to speak.

Soka, on the other hand appeared to have been less concerned. She inhaled sharply and seemed to have given the detonator a small smile.

"You know what? It's okay, James…" was her optimistic response as she pocketed the device. "The Reaper is on schedule to be near the ground zero if I fail to activate it… and if I die before you-"

"You'll be the last one standing. You're the strongest person I've known. You'll see this through…" he cut her off before she could make her request. "But regardless I promise I'll do it, partner. I'm with you... until the very end."

Behind them, they could hear the husks climbing the observation deck's walls to reach them, in front of them, the Reaper forces were breaking through the turrets, their screaming growing louder and louder each passing second. But none of this matter to either of them as they watched a fleet of vehicles and an army of civilians run in the direction of the forests which Soka and James first met.

Perhaps… perhaps they had a chance. Not all of them, but enough. That was something James Merrick could happily die for…

Taking a position behind Soka, his back pressed against hers, he kept an eye on the climbing Reapers. Soka raised her own rifle and kept the doorway covered.

"Are you ready for this, Soka?" he asked her, forcing himself to remain in control of his aura of Zen in the face of death.

There wasn't even a pause on Soka's part to consider her answer.

"Yes, James," she softly returned. "I think that I am ready..."

Pulling their helmets back over their heads and placing the first Reapers in their line of sight, Lieutenant James Merrick and Lieutenant Soka Junian stood ready to face their end together.

…


	9. -00:33:41

**-00:33:41**

**...**

For the last time in her life, Soka Junian woke from her sleep.

She tried her best to recall the haze of the events of the past two hours. The freighter  _Gola_  broke atmosphere and together James and her had fought off the first wave and stayed as mobile as they could to keep the Reaper taskforce from being able to divert any of their forces to the civilians that had fled on foot. They had managed to get outside and continued to fight the attackers. The last thing she remembered was the concussion blast knocking her off her feet and some more gunfire before she was conscious. For how long she did not know.

Activating her omni-tool, Soka read the flashing device. Only thirty-three minutes until the Reaper came in range of ground zero. She must have slept for no more than a half hour by the looks of it. Exhaling, she took in her surroundings. All was quiet… all was dead. It appeared as though the Reapers had left. Whether they had left to chase down the fleeing civilians, or to put a stop to the many guns still firing on the Dreadnought in every direction, she did not know for certain. Whatever the case had been, they had left the port thinking the resistance was killed.

Ignoring the pain shooting through her and the various alerts her suit armour were giving her about the numerous breaches from shrapnel and projectile wounds she had penetrating her suit and body, Soka rolled the Cannibal corpse laying on top of her and attempted to extract herself out of the pile of bodies she was buried in. She coughed, spitting up blood, which she ignored just as she ignored the urge to cry out, or allow the dizziness she felt to overtake her senses.

She would not falter in her last minutes alive… not now.

Dragging herself back to her feet, she staggered slightly as a shaking hand reached up and pulled off her helmet. She would not need it any longer. She took a deep breath of the smoke filled air and coughed again. Quietly she looked around at the devastation left behind for her to witness. Any form of potential transportation out of the blast zone was destroyed. Not that it would have mattered. Even if she had access to a undamaged hover car, she would still bleed out long before she got medical help.

As her senses started to come back to her; Soka's brain clicked back into gear, if only for a moment as a single, desperate thought formed in her clouded mind: Where was Merrick? Where was James? Where was her  _friend_?

She had not heard anything but the wind blowing on her and the Reaper rumbling only a few kilometres away now. The Reaper mattered not to her; the mission was more or less completed. With her duties squared away now James was everything to her now. He was the only thing left that had mattered to her.

" _ **J-James?!"**_  she managed to spit out, her tone weak and desperate to get an answer she knew in her heart would likely never get.

It couldn't end like this. With her being left here alone to bear witness to the destruction of New Esperance. He had to be alive… he was too stubborn to just up and die before she did! She would find him and like clockwork, he would try to say something clever and she would call him an idiot because he really was an idiot, but she liked him for it. It was a charming sort of idiocy and right now that was all she needed. She would die a much happier woman to have that.

Focusing all her attention on walking, Soka managed to get three paces before her legs gave out on her and she collapsed with a small, childish whimper. It was all so humiliating to be like this. It was so helpless, so weak. Gasping and coughing out another mouthful of blood, Soka tightened her talons into fists and used them to leverage herself up somewhat.

" _James? James are you still alive? Please be alive..."_  Soka moaned out as she rolled onto her back and forced herself not to cry out in a mixture of pain, self-pity and grief.

"Yeah…I think so…" a voice called out suddenly. "I don't know if it'll be that way for long though."

Soka felt her heart lurch, whether it was out of the physical injuries or an emotional metaphor she did not have a clear answer for. Whatever it was, it was enough to motivate her into rolling herself on her side and forcing herself up to a sitting position. With what strength she possessed, Soka dragged herself as fast as she could in the direction of the voice. At first she thought it might be blood loss induced hallucination, but then she started to hear the sound of audible breathing.

It wasn't long before she had found James, laying there pinned under the body of a Marauder. His head rolled to one side to look her over. He didn't look any better than she did. James' armour was shattered and burnt to a crisp, a good portion of his hair burnt to a cinder; he was lying in a pool of his own blood.

Silently the pair of them just remained there, taking a sort of refuge in each other. After a brief pause, Soka and James forced the Reaper corpse off him and James pulled himself up, wrapping his arms around Soka's neck as a form of support. Even as he sat up, however, he did not let go, much to Soka's carefully controlled delight. James nestled his head down, resting it against her carapace and together the two of them remained in place.

"You know…" he mumbled into her. "You promised me we would go out in a hail of gunfire, making a last stand against these things. You didn't say anything about making it out alive."

It hurt to laugh, but Soka allowed it. It was a good sort of pain. She lowered her head down as she chuckled, her crest touching against his forehead.

"W-well I apologize for your  _disappointment_  in me," she murmured back to him as coyly as she could produce in spite of everything. "I promise you next time will be a more fulfilling experience."

Satisfied that she made James smile, Soka took a small victory in that. Much to her disappointment however, James pulled his head up from her so that he could look her in the eyes. Silently she relished in the way he looked at her. It was a strange sort of look. His guard was completely down.

"This says a lot about us, you know? We are so goddamn tough that option two didn't work on us!" he observed, a limp hand wiping blood off his lip. As he looked her over, he frowned slightly and added. "Soka…You're really hurt, let me go find you some medi-gel."

Soka shook her head. There was no use to waste the precious little time they had left.

"It doesn't matter anymore… we survived option two… we can't survive option three," she reminded him, dismissing his concerns for her. She gently reached up, her talon scraping softly against his stubble cheek smudged in blood and grime.

Coughing, James pulled back from her and pulled himself up. He was just as shaky as she was. As soon as James found his bearings, he bent over and looped his arms in through hers. With a heaving groan, he dragged the woman back up to her feet. It took more effort than man had expected and they nearly collapsed as Soka barely working legs nearly lost balance. It took him wrapping his arms and pulling her tight against his frame before she could keep herself steady.

" _What are you doing, James?_ " she mumbled into his chest.

Above her, she felt James' chin twist on the top of her fringe. One hand weakly gestured off to the distance. She looked at where it was James was pointing to. Sure enough there was as a ridge the ways off, overlooking the city of New Esperance.

"If we're not going to make it, then we're going up there," he said over her head. "I want to die somewhere not littered with Reaper bodies… agreed?"

Soka didn't really have the strength to argue. Soka remained silent and nodded into his chest. With an agreement on their final resting spot made, Soka and James slowly hobbled over the corpses of the fallen and made their way out of the scorched earth they created and into the green wildlife of Eden Prime.

The two of them remained silent, with only their combined laboured breathing to fill the eerie silence in between the audio blasts of the encroaching Reaper. In spite of everything - the pain she was in, the rattling of the Reaper as it pushed ever closer to them, and of course the lurching fear of the unknown that would take her - she felt…  _okay_  with this. In James' arms, she knew that she would not be facing any of this alone. It was all she really wanted right now.

Perhaps this was all for the best. It seemed only fitting that since she condemned so many to pay the ultimate price to kill this Reaper, she herself would be here paying the same price as the innocent would. At least no one could say that she dodged her responsibility. But while she might have felt this way, she then felt no small measure of guilt that she was including James into it. He never advocated for it, he offered her opportunities to back out, but he never judged her for it, and he stood with her… even now in this twilight.

In the short twenty-two or so hours that she knew James Merrick, she could not have ever asked for a better friend.

As the pair reached the ridge, and came to a stop, they let go of one another. Soka paused to admire the sun slightly breaking through the smoke and cloud cover. It was a small pleasure she was happy to experience. She looked James's way and noticed he was swaying in place, struggling with barely working fingers to unfasten his armour. With one hand on his shoulder, she hobbled behind his and worked her own talons over the armour locks. The armour dropped, leaving James exposed (by turian standards) in an undershirt soaked with blackened blood.

It took all of her effort not to weep out loud, and so instead she buried her eyes into his shoulder, barely noticing as James' shaking hand reached back to touch the back of her neck.

"This was some day, wasn't it?" James murmured, looking down at the city. His voice was light as he tried to mask the agonizing pain he clearly was in.

Soka looped her arms around his waist and pulled him tight against her.

"It… it really was…" she agreed with him, fighting back the anguish in her own voice. "Could have gone with a happier ending… but I'll take what I can get…"

James nodded and reached down, his hands taking her talons off his waist so that he could sit down. He did so, leaving the turian swaying slightly. Watching the Reaper for a moment longer, Soka redirected her attention to pulling off her own chest plate. She dropped it behind her and looked her own blood staining her under armour. Soka sat down, collapsing against James, who grunted but did not complain.

As Soka reached back and pulled her chest piece up. She reached into the slot in the shoulder and produced the detonator for the two of them to look at with almost a reverence. They stared at their very deaths.

"Sure that's still works?" James inquired. "Why don't you hit the button to see if it's operating?"

Soka reacted by pushing the human's shoulder. She leaned forward and dropped the detonator down in front of them. The time was coming, but it wasn't here just yet. She would rather not leave to early. A sentiment she hoped James agreed with.

Sitting there in the dew soaked grass, the pair of them remained locked in their silence. The silence grew heavier. It gave Soka time to think about what was to happen when that was the last thing she wanted to do. The uncertainty of it all was too much a burden for her to bear.

"James?" she spoke, her call of his name felt so childish to her.

James rounded back; his eyes were filled with a concern for her that had lifted her spirits up somewhat. It felt so incredibly nice to have had this small comfort dedicated just to her. She wondered somewhere deep inside her if the man understood just how much he had come to mean to her in the short time they had gotten to know each other. It was as though she had known him for her entire life, but had only today met him.

"J-J-James... James, do you think it will  _hurt_? Because I really don't  _want_  it to hurt," she spoke in a small uncertain voice. "It's… it's not a very turian thing to say… but I think I can drop the act now..."

Soka watched as James's hand turned over in his lap. Blinking rapidly, she exhaled and took the hand she was being offered. She closed her eyes as she felt him squeeze her. She felt his other hand reach upwards and stroke her mandible. She opened her eyes and found James was leaning against her shoulder, his fingers running up and now her facial plating in a comforting manner.

"It won't hurt... It will be a wave of heat and it'll all be over before we know it," he promised her with relaxing sort of serenity in the way he spoke to her. "You don't have to be scared, Soka… I'll be here, sitting right with you holding your hand..."

Soka nodded, her heart thumping away in her chest with the human sitting in such close proximity, stroking her idly. She did not know what to think about it, and she certainly did not know just what to say next. Thankfully for James, she didn't have to say a word.

Not as his lips met her mouth.

It was a strange sort of sensation that she never engaged in before. Foreign, but it was not entirely unpleasant to her. It was a sort of intimacy she never felt before. Her eyes remained opened as she watched James to take in an example, and immediately noticed he had closed his eyes. Was it because she was a turian? Was it just part of the kissing activity?

Whatever it as, she decided she would just let him lead and closed her eyes as she ignored the Reaper siren ringing out in the distance and another exploding anti-ship gun being reduced to rubble. It all didn't matter to her anymore. Not as she felt herself slowly being lowered into the grass James deepened the kiss. She flinched, surprised by it and nipped his tongue, making him wince and pull back.

In the silence, they lay there together, chests heaving against each other as James remained propped lightly on top of her. As he looked down on her, a small curious smile crossed his face. His hand was still allowing his fingers to trail over her.

"Was that your first kiss, or something?" he asked, his voice rippling with strained amusement, like he didn't want to laugh at her.

Soka squinted at him, one talon reaching up to wrap around the back of his neck.

"In case you did not realize it, I don't exactly have lips to do a lot of that…" she sarcastically reminded the man. She paused, and in a softer tone, added. "I am… sorry for nipping you. If you… if you want to try again, I assure you I will be better at it. If you don't, I would underst-"

Soka was cut off with another kiss. While she was initially caught off guard yet again, but this time she at least somewhat ready for it. Her hand reached up and gripped the back of his head, pushing into the soft hair that hadn't been burnt away. She felt the kiss deepen in her mouth, and did her utmost to meet it with some of the intensity which James had offered her.

He broke it and smirked down at her.

"Shut up, Soka," he breathed to her point blank. It was enough to make her laugh and lean her head up to touch it against the nape of his neck.

James laid down properly next to Soka, his body pressed against hers, his arm wrapped around her, clinging onto her as though she had belonged to him. It was a nice sentiment in her opinion. Ignoring the throbbing agony, she nestled into him and relaxed to the best of her ability. She watched as his hand moved mover her body, as if he was exploring.

"So…" James spoke, sounding a little drowsy. "Since we got that out of the way… what do you think? Think you'd be up to death sex? You know… one last ride for the road?"

Soka's eyes widened as she looked at James in shock of his blatant proposition. While it had caught her off guard as the kiss had, she was by no means offended. If anything she was flattered, and more importantly, the offer he extended went a far way to certainly prove to her that their kiss was not just a desperate moment for the man facing his imminent demise. Soka smiled slightly. Under any other circumstances she would have accepted his proposal right on the spot if not horrific condition they were in.

"You want to have sex here?" she repeated, amused and struggling to remain somewhat flirtatious about it. "You… you want to  _fuck_  me in front of an encroaching Reaper Dreadnought? Can you even sustain the physical exertions of sex?…Do you even have enough blood left in your body to achieve an erection?"

Soka's questions had evidently touched a real nerve in the human. Her mandibles flared open as she grinned while watching James spread an expression of outrage at her suggestion.

"Come on now, Soka. I thought you had a little faith in me by now!" James rattled out, his offended voice raspy as he looked her over. "You know _goddamn_ well I'll make it work… might not have a lot of blood left to be coherent about it, but dammit we should try-"

Soka pushed her head up and placed her mouth over her lips. James was only fooling himself. It was the thought that counted to her. If there was one person she wanted to screw her senseless, it would have to be him.

"Well, for what it is worth, I would have complete faith in you," she reassured him as she pulled back, her talon tracing his neck as she pulled him back down onto her.

The two of them relaxed back into a comfortable silence, watching the Reaper as it took yet another step closer in the direction of the kill zone. It's lurching pace a sort of countdown now. It was nearly that time now. As scared as she was, having James with her had indeed been a tremendous comfort.

"Do you think they will remember us?" James suddenly spoke up, the way he spoke sounded unnaturally uncertain. "The people we saved… will what we did even matter a week down the line? They could all be already dead for all we know… was any of this worth it?"

Soka remained silent. She too had been debating it since she activated the bomb. It was a debate she was still having, but a new way of looking at it had crossed her mind recently. If every child loaded into the  _Gola_  survived to adulthood, and if the war against the Reapers ended then would one day, perhaps, would find a mate, and then they too would have children of their own. That was the potential for countless hundreds more people down the timeline that would enter this galaxy because of their actions here today. Entire generations breathing life back into this galaxy because of them.

It was little comfort in many ways for her logical side to handle comfort. There were just too many variables, too much relying on chance. But what mattered was Soka and James had done their part. They made it at least possible. Perhaps… perhaps that would just be enough.

"We gave them a chance when they had no hope left," Soka spoke finally, her head lowering to rest into James. "Yes… I believe it was worth it… and look… we were rewarded for it. We survived the Reaper ground attack. We're alive right now… sharing this final moment in peace in each other's arms… I know we are going to die… but I haven't felt this happy in so many months… At peace with it all…"

James nodded slightly; he seemed to understand what she was proposing; that this had been a gift from the galaxy, from God… the Spirits… whatever it was exactly; they had earned this small respite before they gone.

"Yeah…" he returned finally. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

The two of them returned to their silence, resting there in each other's arms. Ignoring the Reaper the best they could, ignoring the warmness of the blood that was commingling into a cooling pool underneath them. They ignored it because none that mattered any more. All that matter was Soka to James and James to Soka.

They took comfort in their gift. At least they tried to as ground shook and the detonator emitted a small droning beep.

It was... well, it was time.

"Reaper just crossed into the kill zone," James mumbled reluctantly. "I think it's time to take our bow, Soka."

Soka did not answer him. She nodded and quietly watched James pull him up back to a sitting position. He reached out and pulled her back up next to him. Soka reached out and wrapped her arms around his waist and watched as James leaned inwards to scoop the detonator up into his hands.

James exhaled and slowly he turned back to her, a gentle smile crossed over his mouth.

"So… I know it's not much of a date, but I was thinking that since turians love to make things explode, we could press the button together," he suggested, waving the detonator like a toy. "You know… I think it might even be kind of _romantic_."

Soka coughed a mouthful of blood up and wiped her stained mandible. She looked at James pointedly. It really wasn't as bad an idea as she thought at first.

"Just so that we are clear, turians don't like to make things explode on romantic dates…" she said as she propped herself close and took half the detonator into her talon. "It just so happens that this time around, yes… yes I would very much like to turn this  _fucking_  monstrosity into scrap metal with you."

As James chuckled, she took a comfort in him leaning forward and kissing her once again. It was a sweet sort, something she had certainly come to appreciate in their final moments.

"A kiss for the road…" he spoke into her. James pulled back and added. "It has been an honour, Soka Junian."

Soka reached out and took his hand.

"The honour has been mine, James Merrick," she corrected him. "Farewell, my friend."

Looking at the detonator in their hands, Soka and James only lingered a few more moments to soak each other up. Taking in the final details of one another before the great last effort was to be made; they found a small measure of peace. With their foreheads touching and smiles one for each other, the two of them swallowed all of their fear, all of their uncertainty and the terrible unknown they were facing.

Together the two of them pressed the button.

True to James' hypothesis, everything went blinding white, and they felt the heat hit them; but it was all okay to them.

Neither of them died afraid.

**…**


End file.
